Unnal Mudiyum Thambi (உன்னால் முடியும் தம்பி, You can do it Brother, Tamil; 1988)
Direction: K. Balachander
A young Brahmin boy is busy chanting hymns under his breath as he walks to the temple lake to perform his daily abolitions. He sees a blind, hungry beggar struggling to pick up a piece of banana thrown for her. He can see that she is going to fall off the stairs, but he does not help her. He does not want to break his ritual. Another beggar who sees the whole scenario helps her but admonishes the boy for giving more importance to rituals than humanity. Herein lies the dilemma that plagued the adolescent for the rest of his life. One one hand, his father, is a dogmatic stickler of Vedantic scripture and a classical Indian music maestro who would rather die than to have the age-old Hindu traditions desecrated. One the other hand, the boy, Udayamurthi (Kamalhasan), can see so much social injustice around him that his father, a big man in the society, is turning a blind eye.
Udaya is the younger of the two sons of the maestro (Gemini Ganesan). The pressure is mounting on him to continue the family tradition as the older brother is vocally challenged. Conflicts arise as the father has set his bar too high to achieve, and Udaya is just not cut for it. His attention is in social work. To make matters worse, he falls for a firebrand same-minded girl who is from the untouchable caste.
The rest of the story is how Udaya reforms the working class people of his area. He gets the men to stop drinking and getting the kids going to school again instead of working as child labours in an illicit match factory nearby to finance their fathers' unquenchable appetite to the bottle.
This social motivational movie is a feel good one to impress upon the masses that their fate is within their control. They should not surrender everything to fate but instead, grab the bull by their horns and change things for the better. It hints that traditional rituals are selfish in that it is only to prosper one's own self for their afterlife or karmic cycle, not for the present life on earth. As to serve the needy is divine, there is no need to search far to seek the real purpose of life. It is staring right at our faces.
Keeping with the times, the 80s, when there was a renaissance of sorts to revive the richness of South Indian music, the various ragas and talas are highlighted here. The doyens, Gemini, Manorama (as Udaya's sister-in-law) and Kamal himself gave sterling performances.
The burning question remains. Are we living for the now or is our sole purpose of survival here is to accumulate points for the afterlife which is a mighty long time? Is living a hedonistic process of self-indulgence, self-gratification, being happy and self-centred? Or is a life dedicated to other fellow human beings need? We will never know in our lifetime just like the many who have tried and left their thoughts behind for us to ponder and stay ever confused and non-wiser!
Direction: K. Balachander
Udaya is the younger of the two sons of the maestro (Gemini Ganesan). The pressure is mounting on him to continue the family tradition as the older brother is vocally challenged. Conflicts arise as the father has set his bar too high to achieve, and Udaya is just not cut for it. His attention is in social work. To make matters worse, he falls for a firebrand same-minded girl who is from the untouchable caste.
The rest of the story is how Udaya reforms the working class people of his area. He gets the men to stop drinking and getting the kids going to school again instead of working as child labours in an illicit match factory nearby to finance their fathers' unquenchable appetite to the bottle.
This social motivational movie is a feel good one to impress upon the masses that their fate is within their control. They should not surrender everything to fate but instead, grab the bull by their horns and change things for the better. It hints that traditional rituals are selfish in that it is only to prosper one's own self for their afterlife or karmic cycle, not for the present life on earth. As to serve the needy is divine, there is no need to search far to seek the real purpose of life. It is staring right at our faces.
Keeping with the times, the 80s, when there was a renaissance of sorts to revive the richness of South Indian music, the various ragas and talas are highlighted here. The doyens, Gemini, Manorama (as Udaya's sister-in-law) and Kamal himself gave sterling performances.
The burning question remains. Are we living for the now or is our sole purpose of survival here is to accumulate points for the afterlife which is a mighty long time? Is living a hedonistic process of self-indulgence, self-gratification, being happy and self-centred? Or is a life dedicated to other fellow human beings need? We will never know in our lifetime just like the many who have tried and left their thoughts behind for us to ponder and stay ever confused and non-wiser!
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