How Kamal Haasan played godfather

K Hariharan’s book ‘Kamal Haasan: A Cinematic Journey’ was launched on Wednesday. An excerpt describes how the star approached his gangster role in ‘Nayakan’

If there is a Tamil film that heralded the new phase of ‘liberal India’ post Rajiv Gandhi in the most definitive manner, it would be Nayakan (The Hero; 1987). It shook scores of filmmakers and made all the Bollywood bigwigs sit up in awe.

Kamal started this movie with a determination of experimenting with film noir in its truest manner, paying tribute to its founders such as Elia Kazan and Francis Ford Coppola, along with actors such as Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart. And he did it with the kind of confidence few actors of his era could exude. In the scene where he admonishes his aides on the terrace, one can also see him paying a warm tribute to M R Radha, an actor for whom he had very high regard.

This film was truly a ‘glocal’ experiment by a group of spirited Chennai-based cineastes like Mani Ratnam, P C Sriram, Raja Krishnamoorthy and Bala Kumaran, who joined hands with two superstars, Kamal — who had done over 125 films by then — and Ilaiyaraaja, who was scoring for his 400th film. Together they decided to reposition the cinema of Madras as the ‘real’ national cinema. Sriram’s high-contrast imagery, Ilaiyaraaja’s period music and Mani Ratnam’s amazing control on sequential rhythm along with Kamal’s controlled yet nuanced performance would set some of the ground rules for what would be soon called the global ‘Bollywood’ style of transnational Indian cinema. 

But how does this film fit inside Kamal’s search for a new standpoint from which to enter the discourse of law and order for a nation on the cusp of rapid globalisation? Secondly, what does it mean for a melodrama to move out of the classical ‘virtue versus vice’ syndrome into a world of culpability without really taking on the grey areas of the psychological zone? What is the larger intention behind positioning the southern/Tamilian gangster narration in the milieu of a Hindi-speaking Bombay metropolis?

Is he a good man or a bad man? This question emerges constantly for Velu Naicker, a self-appointed modern gangster providing safety and security for all those who seek his guardianship. His answer lies in the belief that if some misdeeds can help people overcome distress, then they must be seen as good deeds. Naicker’s son joins him unflinchingly but his daughter dares to question him about who decides what is good or legal. 

The film explores various shades of such non-judicial justice being delivered by Naicker. At one level, his style of administering justice is all about delivering a safe existence for his immediate community, the Tamil-speaking proletariat in the slums of Mumbai where land ownership is highly contested and even convoluted. 

Interestingly, the film’s meta-text claims that citizens are happy when low-level transgressions are executed, but when it comes to big-scale violations, it should be the responsibility of the super-ego state to provide justice. At no point does the film contest the existence of state institutions such as the court or the police station. Secondly, the film also positions the ethics of defending Tamilians even if they are wrongdoers in an alien and hostile environ like Bombay. And Velu Naicker’s character does not seem to know or worry about the difference between the two wrongs. In fact, when challenged by his own daughter, he wants justice to be done for all the wrongs done unto him.

It is the skilful balance between the wounded persona and the dog-eat-dog world out there, the two kinds of iniquities which the script deals with, that makes viewers support a gangster. Most crucially, Velu Naicker is afraid that his children will not respect him for whatever he is doing. In a way, the kids act as the conscience of the audience. 

The film hardly has any large-scale action scenes on the likes of what we have seen in any of the three versions of The Godfather. It scores by bringing in family sentiments in order to tug at the viewers’ heartstrings.

From a son running from the law after avenging his father’s death to the crooked real-estate dealer’s wife and children who plead with Naicker to spare their luxurious house and lifestyle; from the mentally challenged son of a slain cop to Naicker’s own grandson who does not know his identity; from the father who wants to save his son from the cops to salvaging the pride of a high-ranking cop whose daughter has been raped by a politician’s son, in every case it is the familial cry of ‘lone and hurt’ Tamilians in a hostile city, embalmed by Ilaiyaraaja’s lament, which torments the viewer.

The transition from a young 12-year-old Velu on the run after killing a cop to the death of Velu Naicker at the age of sixty, all in about 150 minutes, is not a smooth ride. The time-skips do not have any well-laid-out milestones of a nation coming into its own after a long period of colonial rule to transit from the 1950s to the 1990s. A few old cars and some songs in the background contextualise the historicity of Dharavi in Bombay, the biggest urban slum in the world. Certainly, a great opportunity seems to have been lost and yet there is no doubt that the credibility of the film rests heavily on Kamal’s shoulders.

Kamal shows how a loner with no education, no associations and no martial skills decides to take on the might of the Bombay police, only to get beaten and come back to his slum undefeated. His singular strength seems to be his naïve Tamilian spirit — maintained largely by his donning a white veshti and shirt, a host of rings on his fingers and talismans around his neck.

Kamal also marked a significant high point in Tamil cinema’s journey when he experimented with unique body language and voice cultivation in the scene where his character sees the dead body of his son. The disfigured and charred body of his son is not shown and has to be imagined by the audience watching Kamal’s reaction. When Kamal as Velu Naicker lets out an animalistic cry of pain, every sensitive member in the audience feels his anguish. 

In a conversation I had with Kamal about this iconic scene, he answered, “As is my wont, I do not think like an actor playing a character on location. I asked myself what the key transition could be here for the script. From the story point of view, I realised that this was the end of Velu Naicker’s legacy. With his son dead, this gang lord had grown twenty years older, waiting for his own demise. So, I just let out a weakened scream of pain which could only come from a very aged man. That’s all!”

‘Kamal Haasan: A Cinematic Journey’ Rs 699, Harper Collins.