Another biographical from Mani Ratnam

Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Mani Rathnam has always used the biography of legends or political personalities for his convenience. There are two benefits in this technique. One is... weaving the screenplay on the lifesketch is very easy. Anybody can easily visualise the happenings in the life of a legend. The other and importent benefit is... publicity!!!. The MBA turned film maker has been doing this right from his debut film. In his first movie 'Pagal Nilavu', he used story of a famous North Chennai don. He portrayed the character played by Sathyaraj as the Late Chief Minister K.Kamaraj (Sathyaraj played a negative role in that film). After released the film, Mani Rathnam strongly denied the allegations. But he never denied that he used the incidents which happened in the real characters life. Then 'Nayagan'... everybody knows that the entire story and screenplay written on Vardha bai's (Varadharaja Mudaliar, the late Don of Mumbai) life history. But even then Mani Rathnam had not accepted and claimed that that story and screenplay is conceived by him.

After Nayagan, it was 'Agni Natchathiram'. In this film he took N.P.V.Ramaswamy Udayar, the liqour king's life as a base for his story. The story of Anjali was taken from an Hollywood movie. He copied few scenes from Speilperg's E.T. 'Roja' his last commercial hit was also made on a real incident. Few weeks before the announcement of the film, there was one engineer kidnapped by Kashmir Terrorists. The Indian Govt had released 3 terrorists from jail, to release him. Mani Rathnam used the same plot for one of his films. 'Bombay' also filmed after the serial bomb blast in Mumbai in 1993.

Take the story of 'Iruvar'. Everybody knows who were those 'Iruvar(s)' i.e., two personalities. One is MGR and other one Karunanidhi. But Mani Ratnam never agreed that he made that film on the basis of the legendary leaders. Very recently Mani Rathnam told in an interview that he did not use either MGR or Karunanithi's biography for Iruvar. Please note, he didn't say this at the time of the release. He wanted to encash the curiosity of the people at that time. In 'Dilse', he portrayed the struggling of Northeastern people without knowing their history and background. 'Kannathil Muthamittal' is a feather in Mani's cap of half baked intelligence. In this film, he narrated the 30 years long fights and struggle of Eezham people as the 'cheap technique of weapon selling by some countries!' According to him The LTTE and Srilankan troops are fighting only to satisfy the wishes of the developed countries or the so called weapon selling countries. Are you ready to accept this 'intellectual' argument of Mani Rathnam?

Now come to his latest venture with Dhirubhai Ambani... i.e., Guru. Right from the beginning of this film, Mani Rathnam refused that the story of the film is not referred any one's life. According to him there are so many people are living in the country like Dhirubhai Ambani. Can he be the person who inspired Mani Rathnam to make a film like 'Guru'? Who else could it be apart from Ambani? He didn't even take pain even to name the characters in the film differently. Instead of Dhirubhai, he named Abhishek as Gurubhai... What a big difference! In real life Dhirubhai got two male children. In reel life, Gurubhai got two female children. If Mani thought that he'd extend the story upto Mukesh and Anil's period of running Reliance, definitely he wouldn't have changed the sex of the children in his screenplay!

The climax of Guru is the real Mockery. The tribunal levelled so many allegations on Gururbhai at the time of hearing. Those charges are notorius and really harmful to the economy. Law will not allow such a 'criminal industrialist' freely.But Gurubhai gave a 5 minutes lecture in the open court hall before the press and public. He couldn't gave any documentary evidence or anything to deny the strong charges... even didn't the charges merely. He just gave that lecture as a messiah for the modern Indian Industry. Immediately the Tribunal (headed by the Cheif Justice) freed Gurubhai with a simple fine! One of the jury in the panel asked like this...Whether Gurubhai is a Dada (Don) or intellect businessman. The other replied...'Both'. How can lawmen free a Dadha cum businessman even though they have enough proofs to piunish him?