Singeetam Srinivasa Rao
Released in 1990, the film had Kamal playing four characters, each with his own personality and mannerisms. If Apoorva Sagodharargal tested physical transformation, Michael Madana Kama Rajan tested performance, timing and staging. As identities collided and misunderstandings multiplied, the screenplay became increasingly complicated. Yet Singeetam maintained control over the madness.
He was 95. Their association reached Tamil audiences memorably with Raja Paarvai (1981), Kamal’s 100th film. The partnership became even more audacious with ‘Pushpaka Vimana’ — familiar to Tamil audiences as ‘Pesum Padam’ — in 1987. Then came Apoorva Sagodharargal in 1989.
Chennai: If Kamal Haasan was forever looking for the next impossible idea to put on screen, Singeetam Srinivasa Rao was among the few directors adventurous enough to travel with him. The legendary filmmaker passed away following health complications. Their creative association produced some of cinema’s most unusual films — stories in which a star could play a blind violinist, perform without dialogue, shrink himself into the unforgettable Appu or multiply into four entirely different men. Singeetam rarely appeared interested in protecting the conventional image of a hero. Instead, he seemed fascinated by how far an actor, a story and the medium itself could be stretched. That spirit of curiosity defined Singeetam’s cinema. A filmmaker who crossed linguistic and genre boundaries with remarkable ease, Singeetam could move from comedy to tragedy, fantasy to science fiction and realism to technical experimentation without allowing himself to be identified with one particular formula. Tamil cinema was an important part of that journey, and Kamal became one of his most significant creative collaborators. As a blind violinist, Kamal played a protagonist far removed from the swaggering commercial hero. The film approached its central character with sensitivity rather than turning his disability into a convenient device for sympathy. Imagine placing one of Indian cinema’s finest dialogue-oriented actors at the centre of a film and then taking away his words. Singeetam did precisely that. The film depended on faces, gestures, movement, sound and situations rather than spoken dialogue. Kamal’s performance had to communicate everything from desperation and romance to greed and absurdity without the assistance of a single conventional conversation. What emerged was not a gimmick but a darkly comic commentary on aspiration and human behaviour.
Rao breathed his last at Kauvery Hospital in Chennai on Saturday.