Fate pens sudden climax for scripter

CHENNAI: Tamil industry has lost yet another icon in just a span of 17 days of director Bharathiraja’s death – one of his many students, the veteran actor-turned writer and filmmaker, K Bhagyaraj, who breathed his last on Saturday in Chennai. He was 73.

Some of his blockbuster-directorial are Suvarillatha Chithirangal, Oru Kai Osai, Mouna Geethangal, Indru Poi Naalai Vaa, Andha 7 Naatkal, Mundhaanai Mudichu, Dhavani Kanavugal, Chinna Veedu, Sundara Kaandam, Idhu Namma Aallu, and Sokka Thangam – some of which ran in theatres for almost a year.

With all the dramatic elements featured in his films, I was fully prepared to meet a filmmaker who was equally excitable. But the person I met was a revelation. An epitome of calm and warmth, the man spoke very little but every sentence was thoughtful and measured. Though I had met him several times, I’ve always been amazed at how comfortable he was with himself.

I recall a time while sitting at his home-cum-office, I had told him that he must have been one of the happiest directors in Indian cinema at the time. Without a second thought, he replied, “Writer. Writing irundhadhaane direction.” (Only with good writing, you’d get good direction).”

That sums up everything he believed in as a filmmaker. And, the reason why some of his iconic films and the characters in them are still memorable is because they are people you meet in real life. “Many characters you’ve seen in my films are people I’ve met in my hometown Vellankoil (present day Erode) as a teenager. I can’t say much about the characters I’ve played, but my best friends Palanichamy and Ramli in Indru Poiye Naalai Vaa, for instance, are like the men you’d find everywhere. What I meant to say is, when these things are written for a film, it’s half the job done. So writing is the core for any film,” he elaborated.

Bhagyaraj was also at the helm of the South Indian Film Writers’ Association, where he took allegations of plagiarism by several budding writers seriously. He was also against the writing culture in Tamil cinema and opined that there should be a proper film-writing school for aspirational writers. “Screen writing is a different ball game. We need to have a proper infrastructure to encourage more people to write,” he stated.

He told me that as a director, he proud about was finishing his films within the right budget at the right time. “We never abused the privileges when we filmed in reels,” he smiled.

The filmmaker understood commercial sensibilities, and was renowned for scripts that had a deadly combination of nuanced and compact storytelling with characters that were hilarious in their emotional honesty. With his instinctive understanding of what the mass audience needs from his film, he wove humour in the storylines, and not as a separate comedy track.

RIP, Bhagyaraj, while we laugh over the guy still trying to teach someone, ‘‘Ek gao mein ek kissan raghu-thatha.”