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Through the magnifying glass

Lohitadas. Click here for bigger pic!

In Malayalam cinema, there is none to beat M T Vasudevan Nair at writing screenplays. If he has any challenger it is Lohitadas. Till the latter turned to direction with the brilliant Bhoothakkannadi, which was released recently to much critical acclaim.

Like his unconventional characters, Lohitadas is fascinatingly different. His life has more twists and turns than any creature of fiction.

Shobha Warrier spoke to him recently. Excerpts from the interview:

You are recognised as one of the best storytellers in the Malayalam film industry. Every story of yours is different. Do you remember when you started telling -- or writing -- stories?

I really don't know when it all began. But I remember one incident. That was when I was writing the script for Valsalyam (a commercially successful Mammotty starrer). I noticed a rat running helter-skelter on the ceiling. I started very lightly hitting it with a long stick. When I touched it with the stick, it would run to one side. Then I went there and touched it again. It went on for some time. Finally, the rat got so tired that it fell on the floor. The pathetic sight of the rat on the floor made me sad. I understood that I had been very cruel to the silent creature.

Suddenly my mind went back, like a flashback, to something that had happened long, long ago. I was ten or eleven then. I killed a small rat with a stick. I still remember the sight of it, lying on the floor, dead and silent. There was blood around its body too. I touched it with my finger and then wrote the date in my diary. In its blood.

Mammotty as Vidyadharan in Bhoothakkanaddi. Click here for bigger pic!

In its blood?

Yes. Then, I wrote the story of the parents of a young rat. Its parents anxiously waited for him at home but it never reached home. As the parents searched for it everywhere, it lay dead in some corner. As I wrote the story, tears rolled down my cheeks. You cannot call it a story. It was only a small paragraph.

Did you write the story also in blood?

No. With a pencil. I think that was my first story.

Did you continue writing?

Not much. But I read a lot in those days. I read all of M T Vasudevan Nair's novels several times and identified with his characters, especially Appunni of Nalukettu. I looked at MT as the greatest writer ever born on earth, and as a guru. Slowly the desire to become a writer arose in my mind. My ambition was to become a writer like MT.

I started sending my stories to almost all the magazines that were published in Malayalam. But I got only one reply from them, that the story was good but due to lack of space, they could not make use of it. I got so many such letters from Mathrubhumi, Kalakaumudi, etc.

Did you feel sad?

It made me extremely sad. During that period, I had some mental problems, a kind of mental instability.

Mental problems? What exactly was it?

I was unable to reach anything. I couldn't read any book without crying. Even inside the library, I used to cry loudly. I couldn't control myself from crying.

Were you that involved with the events that took place in the book?

I was suffering from a mental illness. Otherwise, would anybody get involved in a book like that? You can call mine an abnormal involvement.

Were you aware that it was an abnormal involvement?

Yes, of course. Should anybody have to tell you that?

Even if you knew it was an abnormal behaviour, you couldn't control yourself?

Yes, the emotions took control of me. If someone were to see me crying and ask what had happened, I became all the more hysterical. I had no control over my emotions. I would sob so violently that those who saw me got frightened. Not only stories or poems, but certain sounds also made me cry. For example, the crowing of a crow made me cry. Have you heard how some people shout, Naalathe patram! (Tomorrow's paper!) in the evening?

That also made me cry. I couldn't sit alone anywhere. If I were alone somewhere, I wanted to end my life, commit suicide.

Are you cured of all that now?

The watchmaker with his child. All alone in a dangerous world. Click here for bigger pic!

Now I am okay. I had seen a doctor also. What he told me was, meet people and talk to them. I never had any friends. I sat alone all the time. I preferred only solitude. But when I was alone, I was scared. Later on I made friends with many people and stopped reading books. During that period, I began acting in stage plays.

Amateur?

Yes.

Did you write any plays then?

My creative output was restricted to just rewriting a few lines here and there in the plays that I acted in, that's all. Everything was smooth then and my life proceeded without any major turbulence. It was that I read a report about a literary camp which was going to be organised by the Malayala Manorama. MT was going to be the camp director and I wanted to attend to camp just to see him. After a long time I wrote a story and sent it to the newspaper. They selected me for the camp on the basis of the story. Meeting MT, sitting next to him, listening to him, was an experience for me. I began writing short stories once again.

I wrote a stage play and took it to Thoppil Bhasi (of the Kerala People's Arts Club -- a highly successful and respected drama troupe of the 1950s and 1960s associated with the Communist Party of India. Thoppil Bhasi also wrote screenplays and directed a few films later). Luckily, he liked it and agreed to direct it. I was thrilled as it was the great Thoppil Bhasi who had agreed to direct my first play.

Click here for bigger pic!

Can you believe I got the best story writer award and he, the best director award for that year? When you get an award for your first drama itself, suddenly you get noticed. It happened to me also. That was in 1986. I had become a professional drama artiste by then.

It was through Thilakan (another Malayalam character actor) that I got to know Sibi Malayil (together, they had made some very good movies in Malayalam. The Sibi Malayil-Lohitadas combination was considered as a surefire combination for success in Malayalam films). I went to meet Sibi at Palghat but nothing came of the meeting.

You were attracted to movies by then, were you not?

Not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be a screenplay writer. I didn't know anything about screenplay writing. I just wanted to see my stories on screen, that's all.

How did your association with Sibi Malayil start?

On Vishu Day (the Malayalam New Year), he came to my house in search of me. (The story that goes around in Kerala is that, Sibi Malayil met a dejected Lohitadas on the way but did not recognise him. The answer he got from Lohitadas on enquiring about the whereabouts of Lohitadas was, 'Lohitadas is dead!')

I went with him immediately. He was unhappy with the script that he had with him. What he wanted from me was to rewrite it. I read the script and found it was very elaborate and had too many characters. A short story writer will know how to say something in a few words. Even now, I judge a screenplay with the yardstick of a short story writer only.

Then, Sibi asked me to find another story. I wanted two days to think but could not find any good story. On the second day, disappointed, I went for a stroll outside. There I met a friend of mine who told me that one of our school masters was in a mental hospital. I was flabbergasted. I had seen him only the other day and he was quite hale and hearty. Then my friend told me that the master was very normal and it was his own children who made him a mad man.

So, that was how Thaniavarthanam was born.

Mohanlal and Parvathi in Kireedam. Click here for bigger pic!

Yes, Earlier, I had felt that society was responsible for making or breaking a person. I have seen society accusing a man for something that he has not done.

I have noticed this point of view of yours in several of your movies. In Kireedam, society makes Sethu (Mohanlal) a bad guy when he was innocent. In Thaniavarthanam, others make Balan Master (Mammotty) a mad man when he was sane like all the others. But it was very disturbing to see those movies.

That is my attitude to fate. Life does not proceed the way we want it to. It has a course of its own and it will move only in that direction.

Did you have to suffer at the hands of society? Do you feel that society crucifies innocent people?

Not only crucifying. It is society which makes him a good man and also a bad man.

Does that mean we have no power over our own lives?

What power do we have on our lives? Nothing. Society can make you a good man. The same society can create a bad man out of you also. It is society which creates a prostitute and a killer and a rowdy!

Tell me, what is fate? Does any girl long to become a prostitute when she grows up? No. Okay, does any boy wants to be a rowdy when he grows up? No. All of us want to be good human beings. We live for that. But circumstances force some people to do bad things. Once trapped inside the cobweb, you have no escape. You are trapped for the entire life, permanently.

Did it happen to you also?

Srilakshmi and Mammotty in Bhoothakkannadi. Click here for bigger pic!

Yes. It was life which took me till here. There are so many people who crave for a break in movies. I never craved for such a thing. I never ever imagined that I had the ability in me to write screenplays. But something or someone dragged me to this field. I believe it is the circumstances that decide our fate and we have no hand in it. I'm just a character in this drama; I am not even the writer. See, nothing happens by you just working hard. You need circumstantial help too. That is how I look at life.

Back to your first screenplay, Thaniavarthanam. You didn't have any previous experience in writing a screenplay. Then, how did you manage to write the script so beautifully?

I had no idea about screenplay at all. I feel you cannot learn it also. It has to be there inside.

Do you have a visual image in your mind when you write?

Yes. We need visual images in our mind. We need an ability to visualise. Only then can you write a screenplay. Even now Sibi asks me how I could write the script of Thaniavarthanam so well. Even I have no idea how it happened.

Now, what do you like more, short stories or screenplay writers?

I still like short stories more. But this is more remunerative.

'Nobody knows my characters more than me. I even know the smell of them. They are all part of me'