Madras Miscellany

A film that should be screened

IT IS a film without songs, without any romance - treacly, tree- encircling or otherwise - without fights and without what in its country of production is called 'komedi'. But I'm sure it will do as well all over India, and particularly in Tamil Nadu, as it has done in its home circuit, Sri Lanka, where it has surprised everyone concerned by grossing a record Rs. 50 million and more and still has people queuing to see it. Only no one has asked for it here.

It's a film called "Saroja" and has been made by Somaratne Dissanayake, a practising medico in Australia, whose passion since the 1970s has been the Sinhala stage and screen.

"Saroja", his first feature film, has won close to a dozen awards at film festivals from Chicago to Pyongynang, but still has not had any attention paid to it in India. And sadly, little attempt has been made by the producers to get it better noted here. A lone screening, at an out-of-the-way theatre, to a scant audience mainly with Sri Lankan connections, was not the best way to get the film noticed. What was needed was a private press viewing and conference as well as another private viewing for distributors and theatre owners, but the organisers did not seem to have a clue about such salesmanship, and a brilliant film with a strong message of peace may well vanish from Indian sight by default - unless an enterprising distributor takes it from here.

With the Sinhalese speaking in Sinhalese and the Tamils in Tamil and with English subtitles for those who do not know one or the other or both, "Saroja" is all about how the island's ethnic war affects non-combatants, those pressganged into battle, those committed blindly to a cause and, above all, children being brought up in this ugly but tragic environment. It's as realistic a portrayal as you could wish of life in a jungle village on the edge of a war.

The acting might not be its strongest point, but it does reflect a world of people being themselves and two children being just what they are, a Sinhalese akka and a Tamil thangachchi, unable to understand the madness all around them, but recognising that in their sisterhood lies hope. With this aura of both naturalness and realism about it, with brilliant photography, and with sensitive direction that empathises with the slow pace of almost idyllic life in a village in the back of Sri Lanka's beyond, yet capably handles the action that from time to time shocks the village and villagers out of their placidity, "Saroja" is a winner in every way. It may not be great cinema in the Lester James Peries tradition of "Rekawa" and "Gam Peraliya", rural films that won major Indian awards and which might have well influenced Dissanayake who was just getting started around that time.

But "Saroja" deserves an award every bit as big for its bold handling and realistic presentation of a message many in the conflict are likely to find difficult to digest.

That it will prove a winner in Madras I'm convinced. My barometer is my wife. A film in Tamil she'll go to, but through bits of many, she'll sleep. A film in any other language is sure to find her nodding off. I had to do a bit of armtwisting to get her to go to this one and she not only kept wide awake throughout, but she's still talking about it. So am I.

Who'll be the distributor and who will contact Rupareka Productions, 1330/2, 10th Lane, Bogahawatta, Pannipitiya, Sri Lanka. Tel: (94) 74 353153; Tele-Fax: (94) 74 304332?

A house full of memories

DOES ANYONE have an old house that needs restoration and better use? I can think of several people who would like to get hold of one of those old garden houses and restore them for more meaningful use. Sundar Mahal, the old Jeypore palace in Gopalapuram, is now a boutique and salon after careful restoration. A house off Kasturi Ranga Road in Alwarpet has, with a touch or two of restoration and virtually no remodelling, been made into a French tapestry-maker's atelier. And the century-and- more-old house this French-owned workshop had previously occupied has now been saved from threat of demolition and, restored, is home of the Oxford-based Alden Group's Indian subsidiary, Alden Prepress Services.

The huge home Alden now occupies, has for years not been a garden house. The vast garden space it once had has long been built over. Luz House, better known as the Buchi Babu House to many, however remained intact and in the family till the 1990s. This house was where Indian cricket was born, so to speak, and certainly nurtured when the game was virtually a 'Whites Only' game.

Buchi Babu, his sons, their kin and friends played cricket in the garden and on rainy days in the long pillared verandah or in the huge portico of a building whose style echoed the European Classical. For years, it was that impressive verandah and portico that dominated the building and made it a most appropriate place for cricket to have taken root in Madras. For it was here that Buchi Babu's sons, Bhatt, Baliah, and C. Ramaswami, took a page out of their kin, C. K. Nayudu's book, and became three of the biggest hitters in Indian cricket, but also, as drilled into many a local cricketer by their father, three of the most correct batsmen when the occasion demanded.

This was a house full of memories that warranted being renovated and converted into a museum and archives of early Indian cricket in Madras. But younger members of the family decided to sell it, and highrise development threatened when the new owner pulled down the handsome portico and extended the garden of the adjacent property which he had also acquired. But that's when Alden stepped in and volunteered to restore what was left of Luz House and put it to modern use.

Left without a portico, the restoration had no option but to turn the house back to front, though doing well by the interiors in the process.

That Alden would pay a conservationist's heed to the building was only to be expected for it is a business house with a proud history to it. Founded by Henry Alden in Oxford in 1832 as a printing press, the firm has grown into one of the world's leading pre-press specialists and manufacturers of academic books and journals. But while Alden has done well by his home, Buchi Babu has no niche in Madras that remembers him or his contribution, has no stand in the headquarters of Tamil Nadu cricket commemorating the man who inspired Indian cricket in Madras, and is remembered by the TNCA only by a tournament named after him which, year after year, is being allowed to lose its lustre.

When the postman knocked

REFERRING TO my mention of a second Admiralty House in this column on July 9, Randor Guy, that indefatigable chronicler of film history, writes to say that I left a huge gap in my narration between the time it was the Vizianagaram Palace and when it became Admiralty Hotel. The information he provides helps me fill those gaps this week. I certainly had never imagined it being a film studio, but then I learn something new about Madras almost every day.

Randor Guy tells me that Admiralty House used to be a stately building with an impressive flight of steps, tall pillars, high ceilings and a tale of a ghost that haunted it, that of the late Maharani who had died under mysterious circumstances. The ghost, however, did not worry film-maker A. V. Meiyappan, who in the years just on either side of 1940, was making his way up to movie moguldom.

Meiyappan took the property on a long lease after shrewdly negotiating its rent. Rs. 350 a month had been asked for, but as the owners had stored in a room in it, under lock and key, several invaluable Ravi Varma originals, Meiyappan insisted on the rent being reduced and it was, to Rs. 250! His Pragathi Pictures then moved into Admiralty House and functioned there until a threat of the Japanese bombing Madras in 1942 forced him to shift the studio to his hometown, Karaikudi.

It was at Admiralty House that Meiyappan produced hits such as "Sabapathy" and "Bhoo Kailas" (Telugu). Then, after the Japanese threat had receded and he returned to Madras and Admiralty House, his big winner, "Sri Valli" was made. But after that 1945 hit, he again felt uncomfortable in Madras and returned to Karaikudi where he put up his own studio.

After AVM's departure, a well-known Thanjavurian and Justice Party activist, Palliagraharam Kandaswami Pillai, who was becoming interested in film-making, took Admiralty House on lease and announced a Tamil movie titled "A-1". That well-known American director of Tamil films, Ellis R. Dungan, was contracted to direct it. The project never took off and Dungan took Pillai to court for the promised advance - and won, but never saw the colour of the money, or the errant producer, according to what Dungan related to Randor Guy in the 1990s. It was then that Admiralty House was looked at for a possible hotel.

S. Muthiah

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