PLAYWRIGHTS PARADE
Strong national flavour
RANDOR GUY
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Krishnasamy Paavalar’s plays centred on the freedom movement and were successfully recreated on celluloid.
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It is interesting how Krishnaswamy Paavalar created history by staging his Tamil play ‘Khadharin Vetri’ in faraway London way back in 1923. He managed to overcome British hostility to stage his work in India.
Paavalar had worked hard on the play, based on freedom movement, and tickets were sold in large numbers. Coming to know about the subject, the Raj Government clamped a ban. Paavalar, however, had other ideas. Taking advantage of his intimacy and clout with the Governor, Paavalar called on the uncrowned ruler of the Madras Presidency several times and persuaded him to withdraw the ban. And the curtain went up at the Royal Theater precisely at the moment as announced. The success of the play in the provincial capital and other towns of the Presidency paved the way for the play to reach far away London, where the audience loved the pro-swadeshi messages.
The dialogue, written by Pavalar, targeting the maladies eating into the vitals of the Indian society, such as poverty, casteism, and destruction of traditional handlooms won repeated applause from the audience.
The play that made ripples and acquired an immortal status was ‘Pathi Bhakthi’ (1936).
He wrote it to highlight social evils such as gambling and drinking and their adverse effects on the women. It was staged by the Madurai Original Boys’ Company and re-written for MOBC by M. Kandaswami Mudaliar.
Interesting fact
He wrote a play on the havoc horse racing played on poor families and called it the Governor’s Cup referring to a popular event. During the 1950s, noted writer-director and producer, A.T.Krishnaswamy (‘Sabapathy’ and ‘Arivali’) announced that he would be producing ‘Governor Cup’ as a movie and released a few ads. But the project did not take off. An interesting fact is that the actor chosen to play the lead was R.S.Manohar.
Another play written by Paavalar had an odd title ‘Bambai Mail.’ Also known as ‘Paropakari,’ the play had a strong patriotic flavour.
Incidentally, the title did not refer to any train. It was the name under which the hero, a freedom fighter with shades of Robin Hood, operated.
This play was filmed with success in 1939 and the well-known stage and screen actor K.P.Kesavan played the title role. Supporting him were T.S.Balaiah, M.R.Radha, and Kali N. Ratnam. Sadly Kesavan is today totally forgotten. The movie was directed by B. Sampathkumar, from the old princely Mysore State, who was then based in Madras and made the hit movie, ‘Satyaseelan’ (1936), of M. K.Thyagaraja Bhagavathar. Few remember Sampathkumar today.
Another play written by Paavalar ‘Punjab Kesari’ was a success. It was made into a film (1938) with Kesavan playing the title role. The story had a conventional hero in the film, which was played by the popular stage actor then making his way in Tamil cinema, P.U.Chinnappa who soon rose to become one of the top singing stars of Tamil Cinema of 1940s. The movie was directed by a Bombay -based Parsi filmmaker then active in Tamil Cinema, Frem Sethna. The movie met with limited success.
Active journalist
Paavalar was also an active journalist. There were not many Tamil publications at that point of time and Paavalar launched Indraya Samachaaram. (Today’s News). It was priced at kaalana or three dhambidis, at a time when the Indian rupee had 64 kaalanas or 192 dhambidi!
It was thought infra dig to advertise in Tamil papers. Under such circumstances an enterprising young man worked hard to get ads for Pavalar’s daily. His name was Thiruthuraipoondi Subramania Srinivasan who would soon make history and achieve immortality under his legendary name S.S.Vasan!
Pavalar also brought out Desa Bandhu, a magazine to highlight the Indian Freedom Movement and inspire those Tamils who had no knowledge of English.
Paavalar belonged to Chinglepet district hailing from the community of ‘Gramanis.’ His brother also made a name for himself in later years as Tamil savant and scholar and educationist — Te.Po.Meenakshisundaranar.
The credit for having a colour portrait of Pavalar painted, for the first time, goes to M.G.Ramachandran who commissioned the well-known artist K. Madhavan to do the job.
But for MGR few would know what Pavalar looked like!
Paavalar Krishnasamy passed away years ago and remains unsung for the simple reason he never had any political godfather to promote him.
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