1937. Tamil cinema was by now on fast forward mode and many studios came into existence in south India. After the box-office success of films like Valli Thirumanam (1933), Chintamani (1937), Ambikapathi (1937) and others many entrepreneurs mainly from Chettinad came into movies for they found it a fertile field for making quick profits besides its fringe benefits! In Coimbatore, the textile mill town known as the’ Manchester of India’. a group of wealthy textile mill-owners had plans to build a studio . The man behind the project was R. K. Ramakrishnan Chettiar. He was a brother of Sir R. K. Shanmugham Chettiar.
Sir R. K. was a noted economist, statesman, politician, patron of fine arts, sometime Dewan of Cochin princely state, and later the finance minister of India in Pandit Jawarhalal Nehru’s cabinet.
RKR and his rich pals promoted Central Studios in 1937 which made film history. A joint stock company, the studio had on board a young man, fresh out of college, S.M. Sriramulu Naidu. His father, a businessman and honorary magistrate, was one of the investors and Naidu actively involved himself in film production right from the start. A man of considerable ego, tough- talking and autocratic he crossed swords and more with many but emerged as successful producer, director and studio- owner of south India with a good track record.
Ramakrishnan Chettiar was eager to go into production as soon as the studio was ready and all set for the tee- off. In that period, most of the south Indian producers went either to Calcutta, Bombay or Kolhapur for production or import of talent.
RKR went to Calcutta and met a talented and experienced south Indian young man working in films and looking for a break as director. A Bombay-bred Malayalee with a misleading name, Balakrishna Narayana Rao! He was indeed B. N. Nair but by a strange quirk of Dame Destiny, as a schoolboy seeking admission in Bombay, a kindly Marathi neighbour who had accompanied the kid filled the name in the forms as B. N. Rao! To him, all Madrasis from the west coast were Raos! So the future filmmaker became B. N. Rao under which name he climbed to fame and success as the maker of some hits of early Tamil cinema. His films included Rambayin Kaathal, Bhooloka Rambha, Gumasthavin Penn, Madanakamarajan, Dasi Aparanji, Bhaktha Prahalada, Sathi Murali and others.Chettiar fixed B. N. Rao to direct the maiden production of Central Studios and looked around for a suitable story. He and his friends were interested making a musical movie. At that period the legendary Prabhat Pictures production Sant Tukaram was making waves all over the country.
(Long before Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Adoor Gopalakrishnan came on the horizon, it was the first Indian film to be screened at Venice Film Festival. And praised for its technical qualities. A little known fact of Indian film history!)
A folk myth of Maharashtra it was a Bhakthi-drenched story and the Tukaram bhajans were well known even outside Maharashtra. It had not been attempted in south Indian languages and the producers decided to make the film in Tamil and also Telugu for most Coimbatore mill-owners spoke Telugu being Naidus.
Whom to cast as the saint Tukaram? According to Sriramulu Naidu, the suggestion to cast Musiri Subramania Iyer came from Sir R. K. Shanmugham Chettiar. He knew
Musiri well and it is not surprising that he recommended him to his brother!
For the Telugu version one of the pioneer filmmakers of India, sadly forgotten today like most pioneers, M. L. Tandon was fixed as director, and the famous Telugu stage and screen star C. S. R. Anjaneyulu was cast as Tukaram.
(To be continued)
(The writer is a renowned film historian)
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