VARALAMA?

Sarvam Thaalamayam

A Film by Rajiv Menon

I finally got round to watching Rajiv Menon’s inspirational feature film Sarvam Thaalamayam (STM), a sensitive treatment of the subject of caste and elitism in the world of Carnatic music, the classical music of south India. It also highlights the sweet taste of success that passion and love for your art can bring against all odds, and despite chicanery and opposition at every stage. 

The movie is about the obsession of a young lad hailing from a dalit Christian family—mridangam makers for generations—with learning to become a concert percussionist in Carnatic music. Rejection and ostracism all round, with his parents and finally even his compassionate guru joining in a shattering chorus of disapproval, almost crush his dreams. He despairs of ever finding a teacher as great as his erstwhile guru, but in a moment of epiphany, follows the selfless advice of his godsend of a girlfriend and seeks teachings from the bewildering variety of musics—folk, devotional, romantic, martial, festive—that India abounds in. The miracle that reunites him with his guru who relents from his earlier orthodox contempt for reality shows and trains him for one, and the boy’s eventual triumph in the contest make for a memorable climax. In the finale, even a wily judge opposed to him is moved enough by Peter’s extraordinary originality (inspired by his eclectic journey of discovery) to award him a perfect ten.

The movie does not follow a hardline narrative. Nowhere is caste even mentioned. Though we know from Johnson’s name that he is Christian, we only learn he is dalit by inference—the community are known in the south to be makers of the mridangam requiring the usage of the skin of cattle, and Peter and Johnson Senior are served in plastic cups, not the usual glasses, in a teastall. What I like even more are the lack of condescension in the manner the screenplay treats the protagonist’s hysterical affiliation to  popular film star Vijay’s fan club and the absence of melodrama in scenes showing blood donation to child cancer victims and other good deeds of the street fighters of the movie. Of humour, there is no shortage. As when the venerable mridangam guru fails to  suppress his mirth at Peter’s instant recognition of Vijayadasami day. “June 22, sir, it is Vijay sir’s birthday!”

Even Mani, the most villainous character of the film is not all bad. Here again, the director makes no attempt at showing ‘the villain’s’ transformation when he redeems himself in the final scene after scheming to get Peter defeated by his disciple—one he stole from under his guru’s nose. He is instead seen as won over by the sheer brilliance of the new champion’s percussion. The loser, too, is a gallant runner-up, not an object of ridicule.

Rajiv Menon has extracted exceptional performances from an ensemble cast coincidentally represented by the greatest diversity of caste and community imaginable. Nedumudi Venu breathes life into the role of eminent mridanga vidwan Vembu Iyer, an unbending traditionalist wedded to his art, who can spot talent no matter where it resides, while Vineeth as his senior sishya Mani jealous of new arrival GV Prakash Kumar is unrecognisable from the matinee idol we have known in the past, Prakash himself effortlessly straddles multiple personae from Vijay fan through hip hop drummer to street fighter to obsessive convert to the magic of classical mridangam and Kumaravel is effortlessly credible as Johnson, the inheritor of a legacy of mridangam-making that allows him no self-indulgence, no illusions about acceptance into the exalted world of classical music. Sumesh Narayanan, an accomplished vidwan of NRI origin, brings dignified credibility to his role. Shanta Dhananjayan and Aparna Balamurali quietly lend substance to their roles as the women who intervene strategically in Peter Johnson’s journey towards fulfilment. Vocalists Unnikrishnan, Sikkil Gurucharan and Srinivas play delightful cameos as judges at the reality show. The music direction by AR Rahman is impeccable and appropriate scene for scene, shot by shot. The Carnatic music segments are totally authentic, with no attempt to woo the box office.

The main reason why I took so long to watch STM was that I mistook it to be a new avatar of a Rajiv Menon-made documentary on mridangam maestro Umayalpuram K Sivaraman, which I had seen a few years ago. I was delighted to see UKS’s name in the credits to STM. His inputs and personal example are clearly evident in the film. Sivaraman did impart his art to his dalit mridangam maker’s son, didn’t he?

I think STM is an important step towards inclusiveness in classical music. Elitism and casteism are indefensible in any walk of life, but to paint whole generations of classical musicians as blatant perpetuators of discrimination and indulge in strident name-calling would seem to be just so much posturing rather than a sincere attempt at reform. The enlightened among our musicians, in both the north and the south, have embraced diversity in their art as well as their fellow artists. STM ends on a positive note, which is not to say that it offers easy redress to centuries-old injustice. Instead, it suggests that together we can overcome rather than annihilate.

In an online or TV discussion, Rahman and Menon disclosed that the film was originally tentatively named “Varalama?” the opening word of the beautiful title song, apparently inspired by Gopalakrishna Bharati’s classic ‘Varugalano Ayya’ from the movie Nandanar Charitam. While Nandan’s song in Dandapani Desigar’s bell-like voice was a plaintive appeal to Nataraja to let him enter the Tillai temple,  ‘Varalama’ is a plea by an outsider to be admitted to the exclusive sanctum of classical music. ‘Varalama’ more accurately describes the story of Johnson’s yearning than ‘Sarvam Thaalamayam’, which stresses the presence of rhythm in every aspect of life.  

V Ramnarayan                                                                                                                                 `