Commentary/Saisuresh Sivaswamy

Is the awardee honoured, or the award?

For millions across the world, conferring of the Dadasaheb Phalke award on thespian Sivaji Ganesan could not have come a day too soon, the award acting as a salve on the collective hurt suffered by Tamilians to see this emotional powerhouse being overlooked for the national acting award time and time again.

In contrast, the present award does not celebrate his performance in just one film -- leave that for the young and restless, or the bold and beautiful, they have miles to go -- but lauds his lifetime contribution to cinema.

And, you can say that again. If there is one actor beyond the Vindhyas who moulded generations of actors with his manner of acting, who inspired the audience to a feeling of pride in their rich heritage simply with his dialogue delivery, who will not say die even when age and ill-health have reduced his strength, well, the selectors have chose right.

Often is the comparison made between the other actor from Bombay, Dilip Kumar, and Sivaji Ganesan. The comparison is not only odious, but also erroneous. Certainly Dilip Kumar is an actor par excellence, but there is a crucial difference. In his heyday, and till today, Dilip Kumar had that something about him that turned women into jelly by just watching him. Sivaji too played romantic roles in his time, and to be honest well beyond it, but he never had that quality about him that made women heady; that honour went to the other Ganesan, Gemini, better known to the world as actress Rekha's father. Sivaji moved women all right; they flocked to the cinema houses to see him, but he brought in the mothers, not the daughters.

Tamil cinema, like its Hindi counterpart, is of vintage quality, and, importantly, it was used to kindle the national spirit and, after freedom, the regional spirit. This is something critical below the Vindhyas and it is also something that those beyond the ranges cannot easily accept. For the latter, speaking as a Tamilian, I suppose it beats comprehension that before they turned this ancient land into a civilised one, there was already a large group flourishing with its own mores, language, customs and traditions, all of which survive till today.

It is not something that the south will forget, their cinema being only one medium to articulate this pride. That the so-called secondary centre, Madras, has beaten the daylight out of the premier, Bombay, can easily be seen from the quality of films being made at the two places, and that no Hindi actor or actress today considers himself or herself as having arrived till they act in one particular Tamil director's films or from the number of Tamil films being dubbed/remade into Hindi but still failing to capture the original flavour.

The last point, in fact, can best be illustrated with the recent Hindi hit, Virasat. The role essayed by Amrish Puri, simply another powerhouse, loses its sheen when compared against the original played by Sivaji Ganesan in Thevar Magan.

The point I am trying to make is this: that Tamil cinema has today reached its pinnacle thanks to the efforts of stalwarts like, and particularly, Sivaji Ganesan, and that is not regional pride alone talking.

Today, the question of a national award still eluding him does not arise; it would amount to honoring the award, and not the other way around. But it does not obliterate the fact that even as he was putting in appearances that would made a lesser actor quail, he was repeatedly overlooked for the same for just one reason: political compulsions.

In the glory days of the Dravida movement, power flowed not from the barrel of a gun but from the playwright's pen and the actor's performance. Inside, by Annadurai, a duo emerged that set Tamil cinema first and the state next afire: M Karunanidhi as the penman and M G Ramachandran as his sword-arm. There was a third force, who stayed out of using films as a political vehicle, but still managed to play roles that roused the audience, Sivaji Ganesan.

Among his early repertoire were films of every hue: mythological, historical and socials, but it was the historicals that still ring in one's ears. His dialogue delivery in the film Veera Pandiya Kattabomman, about a Tamil king who opposed the Brits in vain, must still be played over and over in acting schools in Madras.

Oh, there were many more that moved one so, that very few films do today. Tamil cinema by now had been divided into two separate audiences, rooting for MGR and Sivaji Ganesan, the hero of the masses and the hero of the classes respectively. In the midst of it all was politics.

The Dravidians had come to power, but the tension between the sword and the arm that held it soon erupted. And when MGR broke away from Karunanidhi, the central government -- no prizes for guessing who it was headed by -- conferred the national award on MGR. Have any of you seen MGR act? Oh, he could sway the crowds with his good Samaritan roles, but in the acting stakes my bathroom boiler would probably notch higher.

It was de rigeur those days for actors to belong to political parties, and Sivaji Ganesan was a member of the Congress party, the overseer of things all over. But what must have cost him the important award, which his doorpost rival bagged so effortlessly, was the fact that he never espoused his politics through his films. And that politics, not performance, is what counts needs no illustration than the fact that the same MGR was even conferred that Bharat Ratna posthumously, by the central government headed by the same party.

But none of Sivaji's performances were considered worthy of an award, never mind that he spawned an entire generation of actors or that even the mightily Kamal Hasan could not overhaul him when they finally starred together. Yes, to his critics Sivaji Ganesan will remain a ham, a loudmouth whose idea of emoting is to contort the face, but they are missing the woods for the trees.

Acting, those days, hadn't come across method, and, more importantly, the only way one could come into cinema was through the stage, so an element of theatricality was bound to be there. But why would critics be there if not to criticise? They have not prevented other countries from appreciating Sivaji's contribution to cinema. And like the true artiste he is, he has not let such petty things bother him; he has continued to do what he knows best. And, whenever the history of Tamil cinema is chronicled, it will be Sivaji who will dominate the pages.

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