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Here was a Caesar
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A couple of years ago, I chanced upon a magazine story on Thilakan. Written in Malayalam, I struggled to read a few lines only to give up and linger on his photographs. Through the grainy pages, weird hairstyles and bell-bottomed trousers, his eyes shone through. For a Malayali, those eyes are an institution. For a Malayali diaspora with tenuous ties to the mother tongue, those eyes are iconic. Even as his hairline receded, and his face ballooned, wrinkled and sagged, the intensity in his eyes stayed.
When it wasn't his eyes, it was his voice. From low whispers to the booming voice of authority, he did not speak as much as breathe out words through those thick-set lips. Like incantations emerging from deep inside his soul and travelling through the expanse of his physical self before being exhaled. In emotionally charged scenes, this voice is cathartic to audiences. Whenever he spoke on screen, one suspects it was not so much a script being read out, but the language of experience and intuition. It was as much the hallmark of a hardworking actor as natural talent.
Kurosawa famously said of Mifune - "The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three." Thilakan probably needed even fewer.
Exhibit A-Z: Kireedam. Although the movie was and is a Mohanlal vehicle, Thilakan shines through as his father. The movie’s descent into tragedy begins abruptly and culminates in the famous scene where father confronts son. In a murderous trance-like rage, the son has just delivered the coup de grace to his nemesis. Having observed the killing and now facing the blood-soaked dagger pointed at him, he orders him to put down the dagger, fails, then pleads - "Ninde acchanaada pazhayune, katthi tazhe idde da" (Your father is telling you. Put that dagger down"). The tragedy of the whole story - summed up in those few words. Crying, he holds his face and clutches his chest, as if trying to hold on to all those dreams that have gone away. Brevity of words and an ocean of emotions. A masterclass in acting. And the audience cries --- every time.
In later years, when he used that voice off-screen against what he saw as (or like some say perceived) injustice in the Malayalam film industry, it evoked resentment in many. There are more than a few crocodile eyes out there that must be glad to see the last of him.
The father of Kireedam, Moonampakkam’s grief-stricken grandfather, the medieval master craftsman of Perumthachan, the coarse-tongued Kochuvava of Katukuthira, the hysterically paranoid don of Nadodikatu - in an industry where versatility seems at times hackneyed, Thilakan truly earned his right to the definition. If the '80s and '90s were the golden age of Malayalam cinema, then he surely was rolling in the yellow stuff.
In interviews, Thilakan always came across as someone supremely confident about his status in Malayalam cinema's history, with a self-assurance bordering on arrogance. Listen more closely and you will realise that he spoke from a genuine conviction - unwavering and resolute. That is not a quality one finds in abundance. He had it.
Like his name, do I want to know more about his life? Maybe. Do I want to watch more of his movies? Hell, yes! Sifting through his obituaries, I stumbled upon another shameful realisation – that I am yet to watch several of Thilakan's films. And yet, that realisation has turned into anticipation - a delightful one, I might add.
In one of his obituaries, I read about Thilakan's admiration for Brando's Mark Antony in Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar. On Thilakan's absence from cinema, it must then be said (as he would agree) - "Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?"
Wintering Out
Wintering Out, a set on Flickr.
A foggy winter morning at Connaught Place, New Delhi. January 2012
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