The Man from Madras Musings has reached an age where he looks reasonably old. People rush to open doors for him, and he is asked if he has ever met Gandhi (the Mahatma that is) personally. And apart from that daft query there are several more, often with requests to help recreate a particular time period for a cinematic production. And they want it immediately, packaged sensationally and seductively. History served up hot is their demand.
These are days when assistant directors seem to be freely circulating MMM’s phone number judging by the number of phone calls he receives. He does help when possible but draws the line at the inane. There was one request from a theatrical company asking if Muthuswami Dikshitar had any sensational happenings in his life -you know like Tyagaraja – dead man coming to life, robbers en route some place, brother flinging idols into river, etc. MMM had to say no.
There was another call dealing with recreating how Chennai looked in 1995/1996. MMM remarked that this was not so far back in time but the person who called said that was his year of birth and so he did not have a clear idea as to how things were ‘back then’. Suppressing an urge to tell him that that was just about when fire was discovered and the wheel invented, MMM asked as to whether the person had ever heard of the Internet.
“Sure,” came the answer.
MMM- “And are you aware of YouTube that has hours and hours of videos?”
“Yes, but why…?”
MMM – “Are you aware that there are plenty of clips from Tamil movies of that era on YouTube? Can you not see them?”
The voice at the other end was silent. But MMM got the message – watching those videos takes time while a call to MMM would mean getting all the answers in one shot. MMM has over the years become wise to such people. He politely refused to help thereafter. The news obviously went around the Assistant Directors’ club. The next call was to ask if MMM would be interested in acting in a film, and after a pause, also help with the historic context. MMM said no and that was that.
This article appeared in Madras Musings dated June 16, 2024
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Nice one. Wish you had time to act in movies and you should be approached by a top Director (not these Assistant Directors) with an excellent script which you might hesitate to refuse. Good Luck.