Puthiya Akasam Puthiya Bhoomi (1962)
Director: M.S. Mani; Writer: Thoppil Bhasi; Producer: T.E. Vasudevan; Editor: M.S. Mani; Cast: Sathyan, Thoppil Krishna Pillai, Kottayam Chellapan, Kottarakara Sridharan Nair, S.P. Pillai, B.S. Saroja, Bahadur
Duration: 02:31:20; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 89.382; Saturation: 0.023; Lightness: 0.220; Volume: 0.399; Cuts per Minute: 6.865; Words per Minute: 0.053
KPAC
Liberation Struggle (Vimochana Samaram)
Thoppil Bhasi
Released at a time when the heat and dust of the political context of
Liberation Struggle (Vimochana Samaram) had not yet settled, the film is a martyr narrative attempting to mobilize various dissenting population segments in the disintegrating Malayali nation into one unit, using the charisma of the martyr figure who sacrifices his life for the nation’s development. Based on Thoppil Bhasi’s play by the same title, the film sets aside the Left’s typical obsession with narratives of caste egalitarianism and class revolution in favour of the theme of regional/national integration.
For the first time in Thoppil Bhasi’s plays and films, in Puthiya Akasham, Puthiya Bhoomi, we see a certain investment in the state-led program of scientific modernization, thus moving away from the optimistic visions of envisaging a modern, rational ‘nation’ dependent largely on the agendas of self-reformation (of the high castes) and class revolution (by, or on behalf of, the working class). Casting the prominent star Sathyan in the role of the patriotic engineer, who mobilizes the villagers and sacrifices his life while carrying out his duty, indicates the integrationist narrative’s dependence on the charisma of the nation-state’s visions of scientific modernization in order to unite the people into one.
The spatial imagination of the region as a harmonious rural peasant economy – with strong resemblances to the Gandhian idea of the stable, reproducible, self-sufficient Indian villages – is striking, especially coming from Thoppil Bhasi, the quintessential Left writer. The film opens with the visuals of the peasants working on the fields while singing and dancing to the tunes of a ‘folk’ song, thus rendering physical labour as pleasurable – an aspect which was rather absent in the earlier Left films. Of course, strategies of framing the working class using ‘folk’ rhythms and tunes were employed in the earlier plays and films made under the Left initiative as well. For example, in
Neelakkuyil and
Mudiyanaya Puthran, we see the lower caste workers and labourers singing and dancing after a day’s work, etc. Needless to say romantic, this served primarily as a device to mark the lower caste/class spaces as vibrant, but by displacing the radical potentials of their enthusiasm to joyfulness, harmony and innocence.
Here is the opening of Neelakkuyil:
This is the corresponding sequence in the beginning of Mudiyanaya Puthran:
Fear of disaggregation looms large all through the film; as we will see gradually in the film, each initiative for collective action faces the threat of being wrecked by dissenting voices. Prefiguring this predicament, here the film opens with the differences of opinion within the aging Kunju Nair's poor peasant family; it then shows the silly brawls between Kunju Nair’s family and the Christian family in the neighborhood; etc. What the narrative labours at is to unify all these disintegrating segments around the martyr figure of Sukumaran, the patriotic engineer, played by Sathyan. Sathyan's character is in fact a prototype of Nehru - a charismatic figure standing for planned development of the nation through big infrastructural projects. That Thoppil Bhasi had to build this narrative of integration around a character like this is noteworthy, especially in the political context of the dismissal of the first Communist ministry in the state by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1959.
Ratheesh
This sequence is another instance revealing the film’s integrationist impulse and its various ideological layers. Here, the
Harikatha performance takes place on the site of the dam construction, thus imaging a prototype of the united Malayali nation: the villagers engaged in the canal construction come together under the leadership of Shankaran Kutty Nair and perform a Harikatha so as to keep the labourers awake. Shankaran Kutty Nair, the lead singer, chooses the Ramayana episode in which Ravana, having captured Hanuman, is about to set fire to the latter’s tail, even as Vibheeshana, Ravana’s brother, cautions him against this. As the musical rendition of the conversations between Ravana and his brother progresses, Mammootty (played by the comedian S P Pillai), a prominent Muslim character in the film, suddenly bursts out singing – evoking the tune of a Mappila song and using the ‘Muslim’ dialect – describing the troubles that Hanuman’s tail, once set afire, can cause to Ravana’s Lanka. Much to the pleasure of the public and Shankaran Kutty Nair, Mammootty improvises on the lyrics, deploying the ‘Malabar Muslim’ dialectical usages and dropping in English words like ‘fire-engine’ in his singing. The elated acceptance of the Muslim character’s spontaneous enthusiasm to participate in the overtly Hindu public performance indicates again the film’s preoccupation with integrating a society that seemed to be falling apart. The part that Mammootty sings was sung by
Mehboob.
Distressed to see his wife dead in the explosion, Mathayi slaps Sukumaran, accusing him of killing innocent people in the name of development. Soon, it becomes clear that the explosion was the handiwork of the villains. Mathayi repents his impulsive action. Sukumaran forgives him, and asks him to bury his wife’s body at the church. Mathayi refuses, insisting that he and his wife would rather consider the canal construction site as their church. Coming at a time when the heat and the dust of Vimochana Samaram had not yet settled, the Christians signified the dissenting segments par excellence.
The conversation between Usha and her engineer husband Sukumaran, who refuses to leave the construction site despite his fatal injuries from the blast, is noteworthy here. In this scene, Usha sits beside her bed-ridden husband, and sings sorrowfully, in anticipation of the tragedy that is to befall on her, as Sukumaran will have to sacrifice his life in the project of nation-building:
“There are machines to traverse the skies,
to reach the moon, and to kill a human being.
But there is no machine in the whole world
that can cure the heart’s pains;
There is no science for that!”
Hearing this, Sukumaran tries to console her by saying: “No matter how educated, a woman always remains a woman. She will not tolerate anything that threatens to harm her husband and children. But do you remember what you told me once about the duties of an engineer? I am following that advice word by word. Aren’t you happy?”
Usha then apologizes, asking for forgiveness if she has said something to prevent Sukumaran from carrying out his duties as an engineer. Thus, Usha’s disillusionment with the project of nation-building and scientific social modernization, as well as her desires to consummate the marriage, are to be subordinated and sacrificed in favour of the narrative’s integrationist impulses.
The subplot in the film depicting the tragic end to Rajamma's ambitions to make it into cinema ends with this sequence. Though Rajamma falls for Gopu’s words and leaves her family to have a career in cinema, she soon realizes that cinema’s charms are illusory. The words of Shankaran Kutty Nair, who accepts the repenting Rajamma back into the fold of the family, indicate the integrationist impulse that binds the main theme of the film with its sub-plot about cinema, in both of which martyrdom figures prominently. He says: “It was to water the charred paddy fields that my father died; it was in the world of art that my sisters were wounded. One day, the charred fields will be green with life; and the impurities staining art will soon fade away.”
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