Mooladhanam (1969)
Director: P. Bhaskaran; Writer: Thoppil Bhasi; Producer: M. Kassam; Cinematographer: P. R. Ramalingam; Editor: K. Narayanan, K. Sankunni; Cast: Sathyan, Prem Nazir, Sharada (Saraswati), Jayabharathi, K.P. Ummer, Adoor Bhasi, Sankaradi
Duration: 02:21:25; Aspect Ratio: 1.833:1; Hue: 94.094; Saturation: 0.026; Lightness: 0.215; Volume: 0.354; Cuts per Minute: 5.544; Words per Minute: 80.510
Summary: The social and political plays staged by Kerala Peoples Arts Club, popularly known as KPAC were instant hits. Most of such plays were made into films. Several of these plays were written by Thoppil Bhasi, the renowned playwright.
Mooladhanam written by him and published in 1958 was a hit and successful on the stage too. The play was made into a film with the same name by M. Kassim under the banner of Azeem Company and was released on August 15, 1969. The film was a huge box office hit. The script and dialogues were written by the playwright. Thoppil Bhasi won the State award for the best script. Directed by P. Bhaskaran, the film was shot at Vasu Studios.
The story is set in the background of Diwan’s rule in the State of Travancore. Ravi (Sathyan) and Mammootty (Prem Nazir) lead the agitation against the Diwan’s rule. The government files cases against them and both of them go underground. The government declares a cash reward for information about them. Ravi seeks refuge in his friend Madhu’s (K. P. Ummer) house. A supporter of the Diwan, Madhu refuses. Ravi entrusts the manuscript of his novel Palungu and asks him to publish it in his pen name Soman.
Mammootty is arrested by the police. Ravi gets a job as a tuition master in the house of a retired magistrate Narayana Pillai (Eddy) and hides there.
Ravi’s house and property are confiscated and the police arrests his wife Sarada (Sarada). Ravi’s children Appu (Master Pramod) and Ammini (Sai Suseela) leave their home and reach Ravi’s hideout. Without revealing her identity Ammini takes up a job in the house. Madhu gets Sarada released from jail. He wants Sarada to live with him but she refuses.
Madhu publishes the novel Palungu in his own name and it wins an award. Fascinated by the novel, Narayana Pillai’s daughter Malathi (Ambika) becomes a fan of Madhu’s and invites him home for a celebration. Ravi and Madhu come face to face. Madhu reveals Ravi’s identity and Ravi is arrested and sent to jail.
The police frames Appu in a false case and arrests him. Sarada has no choice but to live with Madhu in order to rescue Appu. Mammootty’s wife Nabeesa (Jayabharathi) supports Sarada and her children. Ravi and Mammootty are released from jail.
Ravi realises Madhu’s deviousness and how he trapped Sarada. He understands why his faithful wife, Sarada, gave in to Madhu’s demands and they live happily ever after.
Satyan and Sarada excelled in their highly emotional roles. K. P. Ummer’s villainous character was a new experience to the audience. His refrain describing himself as a “vikaara jeevi” (a person easily susceptible to desires) gave an entirely different face to his ‘cold blooded’ villain.
Satish Poduval adds:
"Mooladhanam" [Moolam=foundation + dhanam=wealth] translates as Capital, but Bhasi's narrative aims to re-signify the concept from the dominant sense of "the wealth invested by the entrepreneur" to a more Marxist-nationalist sense of "the labour and sacrifices invested by the masses for building a national society."
This was the first play written after the communists were elected into office in the new state of Kerala on 5 April 1957. One of the first actions of the government was to release those imprisoned in connection with the "Sooranad case." Thoppil Bhasi--who had been an accused in this case, and was now an elected member of the legislative assembly--personally went to prison to witness the release of his comrades, and this event prompted him to write this play.
Bhasi took over one year to write the play. In the Preface to the first edition of the play (1958), he wrote:
"I had never taken so much time to write any other play. It is a play that I wrote with a deep sense of hurt. This is a story from the past decade of pain that has clouded Kerala's history. A true story. Two small and innocent kids burdened with life's wounds and a begging bowl are being sent on our stage by me. Actually the hero and heroine of this play are these kids who are brother and sister. While watching and reading this play, there might be a question why I have named it 'Mooladhanam.' Everybody would agree that there has been a marked change in all our systems, including in the governmental system. But all--the new rulers [communists] as well as their critics--must realize and remember this: this change has required an investment (i.e. a Capital). This painful story is about that."
There are also striking autobiographical parallels in this text, and in one sense the central character (the communist activist and writer Ravi, played by Sathyan) is based on Bhasi himself: like Ravi and his novel "Palunku" [The Mirror] here, Bhasi had written the hugely successful "You Made Me a Communist" as a communist in hiding (he was underground during 1948–52 as a key suspect in the Sooranad Incident, with a Rs 1000 bounty on his head). His famous play was published under the pseudonym 'Soman,' and he had earnings from it to pay for the legal costs of getting those accused in the Sooranad case released.
The play went on stage on 2 October 1958, and did quite well. It was widely discussed, and an English translation was published by the Sahitya Akademi. The film version of "Mooladhanam" won Thoppil Bhasi the Kerala State Award for the best screenplay in 1969.
The KPAC had been interacting with the IPTA during the mid-1950s, and were encouraged by Balraj Sahni's praise and suggestions after he watched "You Made Me a Communist." Sahni was invited as a state guest but the government of Kerala in January 1959, and the KPAC performed "Mooladhanam" for him. Sahni observed that the play was too melodramatic and that Bhasi had not lived up to the promise of "You Made Me a Communist." Bhasi still found this negative evaluation "useful" and accompanied Sahni to the Peechi dam site--following which he wrote his play "Puthiya Akasham, Puthiya Bhoomi" (959). The famous communist leader and ideologue EMS Namboodiripad too had been critical of the melodramatic element in Bhasi's plays.
However, as Nissim Mannathukaran--drawing on Madhava Prasad's work on melodrama--notes, the KPAC melodramas were "substantially different from the aristocratic and feudal melodramas of the previous era with their glorification of the feudal order and its claims to divine sanction... Even as they used moral categories they did not shy away from social reality and portrayed the working classes and the peasantry as the agents of social transformation. Thus they differed from the conventional melodrama which 'aspires to the transcendental, ceaselessly submitting the realities of existence into mythical moral categories because these are the currency of human interaction in the pre-modern symbolic order maintained by the church and the monarchic state'." To what extent the KPAC melodramas broke with the traditional, upper caste, symbolic order remains an open question.
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The events in this film are set is the pre-independence period between 1944 and 1946, although the voice-over narration at the start of the film states "Today, India is free." Bhasi himself was underground in connection with the Sooranad case between 1948 and 1952, and hence setting this film during the Diwan's rule might be to avoid problems with the censors.
The film opens with an unusual "historicizing" voice-over that addresses the audience in a documentary mode, outlining Thoppil Bhasi's conception of the term "Capital" (mooladhanam) which is explained here as an "massive investment" (muthalmudakku) by all classes of people.
The off-screen narratorial voice-over segues into the on-screen political lecture that Ravi delivers to the assembled peasants, emphasizing that the ongoing communist-led struggle for "land for the tiller" is part of the ongoing "freedom struggle."
Gayatri Devi observes: “'Mooladhanam' opens with Ravi and Mammootty teaching a ‘study class’ to a group of low-caste laborers about the meaning of the word ‘mooladhanam.’ In Malayalam, the word literally means ‘capital.’ Ravi, however, teaches the audience that in order for them to have jobs, wages, and freedom, the only ‘capital’ they have is ‘sacrifice’—willing sacrifice of all they have for the sake of the nation. The Malayalam word for ‘sacrifice’ is ‘thyagam,’ and in this catachrestic conflation of ‘capital’ with ‘sacrifice’ we find a metaphysical interpellation controlling a materialist discourse. Indeed the word ‘sacrifice,’ with its mystical and religious undertones, has become a star-studded vehicle for the representation of radical ideology in Malayalam cinema. The ‘sacrifice’ story is essentially the story of an individual, not a collective.”
The key characters and relationships are introduced. Ravi and Sarada are a loving Hindu couple with two children; Madhu is their wealthy friend whose unwelcome attention irritates Sarada, Mammotty and Nabeesa--a newly-married Muslim couple--are their communist friends and neighbours.
The song "Swarga Gaayike Ithile" written by P. Bhaskaran, composed by Devarajan, and sung by Yesudas.
The police accuses Ravi and Mammootty of conspiring against the government and forces them to go into hiding. The police begin to harass Sarada and her children, while Nabeesa's father Ansaar (a butcher) declares his opposition to Nabeesa's recent marriage to Mammotty.
One year passes. The underground communists begin to get intermittent messages from the party leadership. Nabeesa extends support to Sarada and helps in taking care of her children.
The inexperienced Mammootty is desperate to meet Nabeesa, while Ravi tries to keep his emotions in check. In addition to the police, various others begin attempts to capture the underground communist leaders for the reward. An old peasant couple--Veluthakunju and Chinamma, untouchable members of the communist network in the village--gives Ravi shelter after his wealthy friend Madhu declines to do so. Touched by their generosity, Ravi says that he feels like a "new human being" and begins to feel "real human emotions."
After fulfilling their risky duty of sheltering Ravi, Veluthakunju and Chinamma do not appear to play any further role in the narrative.
The song "Olichu, Pidichu" written by P. Bhaskaran, composed by Devarajan, and sung by P. Susheela.
Mammootty meets Nabeesa at a hilltop. He is tracked by the police and surrenders when they threaten to arrest and torture Nabeesa. Ravi is critical of Mammootty's weak-willed indiscipline. Ravi tells his comrades that he will shift to a nearby town to get the novel he has just finished writing published.
Ravi hands over the manuscript of the novel to his old wealthy friend Madhu, who agrees to get it published and use the royalty to take care of Ravi's family. Sarada and Nabeesa both fight depression and support each other and the kids.
Mammootty in police lock-up dreams of Nabeesa.
The song "Pulayaarazhappol" written by P. Bhaskaran, composed by Devarajan, and sung by P. Susheela
The kids outwit the bumbling policeman and obtain a secret document that might prove help in their father's case. Sarada approaches her brother and mother for help, but leaves angrily when they criticize her communist husband. She tells her kids that they have no other family from now on.
Madhu begins to make advances on Sarada.
Sarada is arrested by the police, Nabeesa's father stops her from taking care of Sarada's kids and they decide to leave home. Appu begins selling peanuts on the streets, and will soon become a messenger for the communist activists.
We are suddenly in a new middle-class setting. It is the home of a retired judge and his daughter Malathi, at whose home Ravi takes tuition for some children. Malathi and her father debate about the sensational recent novel "Palunku" [The Mirror], unaware that its author 'Soman' lives in their midst disguised as the respected tuition teacher. Ravi is also delighted to see a copy of his book in print.
The hit song "Ente Veena Kambiyellam" written by P. Bhaskaran, composed by Devarajan, and sung by Yesudas.
Ammini and Appu arrive at Malathi's house, hungry for food. Malathi takes pity on them and asks Ammini to stay on and help with domestic chores. Ravi witnesses his hungry kids now being separated.
Madhu intervenes to get Sarada released from prison. Ansaar plans to get Nabeesa re-married to Kassim Pillai, the bungling Intelligence Department policeman. Sarada is distraught to discover that her children have gone away, and wander around looking for them.
Ravi is shocked to learn that his old friend Madhu has claimed authorship of his award-winning novel "Palunku." Madhu begins to press Sarada for sexual favours but she resists as long as she can. Appu is caught by the police and tortured at the police station. Madhu has to be approached again to help with Appu's release.
As the police tortures Appu in lock-up, the other communist prisoners raise slogans against martial law and police torture.
The agit-prop song "Oro Thulli Chorayil Ninnum" written by P. Bhaskaran, composed by Devarajan, and sung by Yesudas, Anto and Venu.
The garrulous Kurup who falsely boasted about knowing Ravi's whereabouts is arrested and tortured at the police station. Ravi helplessly witnesses his daughter being scolded by Malathi.
Madhu is welcomed at Malathi's house with great enthusiasm and respect. Ravi hides from the guest and witnesses his daughter being punished by Malathi for disrespecting Madhu by putting the garland meant for "the great author" on her father's blank photo-frame. Ammini is turned out of the house at night; Ravi follows her and ensures that she reaches her mother safely.
Kurup is taught by the communist prisoners how to be left alone by the police. Ansaar continues to press Nabeesa to remarry, claiming that Mammootty had divorced her. Upon hearing that the police were torturing Appu and might come to arrest Ammini, Sarada finally decides to let Madhu have his way with her in order to save her children.
Ravi finally casts aside his disguise and confronts Madhu regarding his treachery at Malathi's house. He is arrested by the police.
Appu is released from jail and is furious to discover his mother's liaison with Madhu. Malathi realizes that she had been mistaken about Madhu, and begins to make amends. She meets and assures Sarada that her children would return to her. Her father, a former judge, realizes that he too had been mistaken about taking a merely legalistic view of communists like Ravi. He wishes to donate the monetary reward he had received for getting Ravi arrested to the wretched Sarada, but she throws it back at him.
Malathi meets Ravi in jail and informs him that his family is safe, and that she had worked with the defence committee to ensure that all the prisoners would soon be freed. Ansaar realizes that he had been taken for a ride regarding Nabeesa's re-marriage. Kurup comes back to the village, and proudly declares that he has now become a communist.
The "revolutionary" climax. Typical KPAC-style agit-prop rally with on-screen sloganeering and off-screen song "Oro Thulli Chorayil" (From each drop of blood, a thousand activists arise)
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The second "revolutionary" climax at the domestic level: Mammotty tells Ravi that he is a great man but must "now become greater"--Ravi struggles with the realization that his wife has had to contribute/invest her sexual labour to the political struggle, and has remained a "pure woman." Sarada's sari segues into the Indian national flag.
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