THE ARTICLE IN TAMIL WHICH HAD ATTRACTED WIDE SPREAD APPRECIATION AND ALSO THREATS FROM THE TAMIL LITERARY FIELD HAS BEEN TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH BY AI AND GIVEN A POETIC EDIT BY YOUR RAGAVAPRIYAN THEJESWI

At that time, he was pursuing his P.U.C. studies.

The years were 1977–78. Every day he journeyed by train from Tiruvarur to Poondi College, a ceaseless pilgrimage upon rattling rails. Cinema was then the sole nourishment for the hunger that gnawed at the hearts of the young. It was the dawn of a new dream-age, when Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth had begun to eclipse even the towering shadows of Sivaji Ganesan and M.G.R.

The film industry, meanwhile, was growing weary of pouring the same old liquor into differently shaped bottles, striving in vain to intoxicate audiences like him.

Yet he had not seen 16 Vayathinile.

Those were the days when the films of Adoor Gopalkrishnan, Satyajit Ray, and Mrinal Sen left him bewildered and restless with their incomprehensible brilliance. Among Tamil directors, only K. Balachander had earned a measure of his approval.

By then, every one of his college friends had already watched 16 Vayathinile. They spoke of nothing else. One day, accompanied by his friends Santhakumar Chakravarthy and Anbazhagan, he stood in a queue at a theatre in Thanjavur, waiting to witness the celebrated film.

He possessed not a single spare coin.

Anbazhagan moved through the group, collecting money for tickets. Each friend contributed three rupees and fifty paise—the price of a bench ticket. Then Anbu turned towards him.

"A little short, are you?" he asked.

Before embarrassment could answer, Anbu smiled and said, "Never mind. I'll make up the difference."

Even now, one can almost see that queue inching forward through the haze of memory, carrying with it an entire era.

When they finally reached the ticket counter, he offered Anbazhagan only two twenty-five-paise coins. The look Anbu gave him at that moment is beyond the power of words to capture.

Nearly fifty years have passed since that day. Countless memories have faded. Yet even now, the compassionate glance Anbazhagan cast upon him continues to gaze from within his heart, unchanged by time.

Anbazhagan bought tickets for everyone—including him.

Skipping college classes, they attended the morning show.

Strangely enough, he did not like 16 Vayathinile.

Aesthetics meant nothing to him then. He lacked the vision to comprehend Bharathiraja, that daring voyager who launched a solitary boat into the vast ocean of cinematic language. Somehow, the film failed to move him.

Perhaps it was Kamal's rustic appearance and habit of spitting that displeased him. Spitting, after all, was a common feature of railway stations and village streets in those days. Villagers had mastered the art of placing two fingers upon their lips and launching a sour stream with remarkable precision.

The film ended.

They emerged from the theatre.

Santhakumar bought tea for everyone.

All the way back to Tiruvarur, his friends dissected every frame of the film—Sridevi, Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, even the doctor character. The discussion flowed endlessly.

He alone remained silent.

"How is it?" they asked one another.

Finally they turned to him.

"Was the film good?"

"No," he replied. "I didn't like it."

A few friends immediately sprang forward, ready to thrash him for such heresy.

Years later, in 1981, armed with a recommendation letter from his college principal, he met Bharathiraja himself, hoping for employment in the film industry. If memory serves him right, Alaigal Oivathillai had just been released.

One lyric from the film troubled him:

"Love worship in a temple..."

Even then he interpreted such lines as subtle instruments of religious conversion.

Bharathiraja, whose gravelly voice had long echoed through Tamil Nadu's radio waves, asked him:

"What work do you know?"

"Sir, I can write lyrics for music."

"Then go and meet Ilaiyaraaja, brother."

"No, sir. I am desperately poor. I have completed my B.Com. If there is any office work..."

"Don't waste my time, brother. Come another day."

"Sir, I will not work under Ilaiyaraaja."

The director turned, surprised.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because he composed music for lines such as 'Love worship in a temple.'"

Bharathiraja stared for a moment.

Then came the question:

"Brother... are you an Iyer?"

Displeased by the question itself, he walked away without answering.

Today, however, he offers a reply across the distance of years:

"Yes, Director. I am an Iyer indeed.

Go in peace.

May your soul find rest."

Ragavapriyan Thejeswi