Mediyaan YuvaNSK – A LIVING LEGEND
Born on November 29, 1908, to Sudalaimuthu Pillai and Isaki Ammal, in an impoverished family he had to support his family’s sustenance by pulling carts from a young age. His passion for acting, singing led him to sell soda at the local drama theatre so that he could watch the plays with avid and insatiable interest, unabated as he couldn’t afford tickets and he got to watch the plays for free. Before he entered the cinema arena he was a consummate “villu pattu” artist, where Nationalistic, Societal thoughts were sung with an instrument akin to bow shape and hence got the name “bow song”.
Though he made his acting debut in film sathi leelavathi, his first release was film “menaka”. He belonged to that era where the transition from silent movies to dialogue speaking movies were emerging, they were thought to be the pioneer actors introduced to Tamil Talkies in its first decade of 1930s. This created a huge impact on these comedians with an incalculable responsibility and they individually had to chart their paths for others to follow. They were thought to be the hangover from silent movies, slapstick comedy which were the principal focus in early talkies. Till then people tripping, stumbling, or animals charging at them, pot belly men trying to do acts, brought laughter relief.
NSK brought about the change in dialogues delivery, humour, so that they had to be meaningful and watchable with family audiences. His humour and comedy are still alive in the minds of his avid fans, which are and were always rib tickling and thought provoking.
In all his films there were always, messages of Nationalism, social evils like removal of superstitions, denial of caste barriers, campaign against alcoholism, gambling, black-marketing, untouchability, all laced with humour never hurting anyone’s feelings and sensitivity in the process. His daring anti-casteist dialogues in a movie impressed Anna so much that he was surprised that NSK spoke in favour of social transformation and that too without any party indoctrination. Anna led NSK to meet periyar who was impressed with him and went on record and said “cinema was violence perpetuated on human thinking”. This paved him way then on, for the Dravidian Movement to look at him as a publicist but he stayed away from actual politics. He was a Gandhian at heart but publicly a Dravidian sympathiser. True to himself he built a memorial for Gandhi in his home town Nagercoil.
More movies, money and fame unfazed him that he, all through his life remained a philanthropist even if it meant losing his own hard-earned money. An incident for a sample, he organised a function to honour his chauffeur, he printed an invitation and called the dignitaries of his time like Anna, Jeeva to honour him with a shawl. So, inspired by this act of NSK, Anna decided to organise and honour his own tailor. Such was the impact of his goodness.
While at the peak of his cinema career, (1944) a murder charge against him and super hero of those times Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, to have killed a muckraker journalist C N Lakshmikanthan, who used to pry on the personal lives of the actors, wrote gossips, rumours, with sexual overtones about them in his journal called cine thoothu. The actors effectively stopped the journal being published by asking for a license cancellation. This didn’t deter Lakshmikanthan that, after a gap he started Hindu Nesam and continued his writings. An ex-convict known for his connections with roughnecks those days he was stabbed by a group of men, succumbed to the injuries and died.
In this case both NSK and Thyagaraja Bhagavathar were accused, convicted and sent to jail on counts of conspiracy to murder. The case was appealed at London with the privy council who reverted back to then Madras High Court, by the time the case had been heard and they were acquitted 30 months had passed by, they were released in 1947. While in jail NSK, worked as a book binder and he had his co prisoners in splits with this proverbial touch of sense of humour and comedy.
Randor guy a famous Tamil movie historian, recounts in his book (1997) “STARLIGHT STARBRIGHT” the populous opinion held that both the major actors were implicated in the case were innocent and they had been framed, when he tried to investigate this in the 1970s he was politely warned, to stay off the story.
His co artiste and then his life partner T.A. Madhuram, the couple duo was the first to introduce separate comedy track in so many films, often waited for the main film to be shot to write his role and produced comedy shorts which were shown with the main film. He was compared to then the world’s renowned comedian Charlie Chaplin on these counts, both had Dickensian childhood, that they got hooked on to theatre at a young age, life’s philosophy taught them both sweetness of adversity, which ran through them in all the amusing humour and comedy. Both had either left or centre leniency in politics, had one of their wives sharing the silver screen with them, they have had entanglements with law enforcement. Differences would be Chaplin’s comedy was based on distinction between silent and talkie movies while NSK’s would be talkies only. Chaplin’s speciality in comedy was visual, slapstick and pantomime while NSK’s comedy was oral. Chaplin died at the age of 88 while NSK(49) had a short life span. Chaplin never was a patronage for folklore arts while NSK was a villu pattu artist.
After the release from jail Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, though the culprits were never to be found he had lost all his fame and money fighting for his case and justice. Whereas NSK could resume acting in movies, he had also lost his immense wealth to fight the case and for justice.
In his life time NSK was conferred the following titles “KALAIVANAR” in the year 1947 by Nataraja Educational Society. “NAGASUVAI ARASU” by Vishwanatham, “PURATCHI VIKATA VENDAN” by Poet Bharathidasan.
NSK, was undergoing treatment for Hepatitis since 12th August 1957, he died at the General Hospital, Madras on 30th August 1957, followed by complications. Kalaivanar as he was affectionately called was an active member of the Dravidian movement that Kalaivanar Arangam was named after him being one of the leading landmarks till date. As a mark of respect and remembrance the ruling Tamil Nadu Government then in 1969, erected and unveiled the statue of NSK on G N chetty Road, T nagar another famous landmark till date.
HE IS INDEED A LIVING LEGEND….
- VIJAYASHREE RAMESH ADVOCATE, Chennai