TN Seetharam is the man who started the trend of having 400-episode shows with his hit TV series, Mayamruga, which made Malavika a household name. Then came other popular hit shows such as Manvantara and Muktha. The next logical step was to direct a film, and he chose SL Bhyrappa’s book Mathadana to adapt to film. He tasted success again when the eponymous film, won the National Award in the best feature film category. The director, script-writer and actor, who often plays the lawyer in most of his serials, started off by working as an associate to playwright and director, P Lankesh and also acted in the latter’s award winning film Pallavi. He has also worked with Puttanna Kanagal, writing scripts for his films.
The man is back on Colors Super with another series Magalu Janaki, where he will once again play a lawyer. He goes down memory lane to reveal the hard work that went into the making of Mathadana, which featured Anant Nag, Avinash, Tara, Devaraj, Hemanth Vasisht, Mukhyamantri Chandru and Sunderraj in pivotal roles.
“I had just finished my television show Mayamruga. It was one of the milestones in the history of Kannada television. The time allotted for me was 4.30 pm and no one thought it would become so popular. In spite of the timing of the telecast, the series caught the attention of people; most of them would tune in to the show.”
Around that time, Vittal Murthy and a businessman HG Narayan had joined hands and started Aniketan Films. They had just won accolades for their first film Kanooru Heggadithi, based on Kuvempu’s novel and were looking to make their second film. They approached me to direct a film for them and I was game for it.
Incidentally, I had contested the elections from Gauribidanur and lost. Though Mayamruga had made me famous, I was defeated by the people. I was well connected politically and knew Ramakrishna Hegde well. In fact, he was the one who suggested I contest the election. After losing the elections, I was in rebound mode when Aniketan Films approached me.
Narayan has read almost every Kannada novel and had a photographic memory of the characters in each book, the authors, background and situations. His memory is astonishing. Together we chose Bhyrappas’s novel Mathadana to film.
The book was about what had happened in Karnataka — the story was about the division between the old and new Mysuru with the war between castes as the backdrop. I loved the way Bhyrappa had brought out the story and called him to ask if he would give me the rights to make his book into film. He was not confident and refused to give me the rights.
Bhyrappa was also friends with Hamanayaka who was writing about Mayamruga almost everyday in his paper. During one of their discussions about me Hamanayaka insisted that I be given the rights to make the film of his book. Immediately, Bhyrappa called me and gave me the green signal.
The story was set in 1951. I wanted to set the film against a little more modern backdrop and set the story in 1971 as I was familiar with the politics of that time and understood the battle between politicians during elections. During our meeting I told Bhyrappa that I would change the time from the 50s to the 70s. He was encouraging and told me that once he gave me the rights to his story, it becomes my responsibility. I was thrilled.
Mathadana centres around a prominent rural doctor who is famous in his village because of his gift of healing patients. He is not money minded and is popular with everyone. How he is used by two politicians as a pawn and what happens to his life forms the crux of the film. I was bowled over by the story.
I also found similarities between me and the doctor’s character. He loses the election in the film as I had lost in real life. Coincidentally, Anant Nag had contested the elections from Chamarajpet and had lost, Mukhyamantri Chandru had contested from Malleshwaram and had lost and so had Sunderraj who had contested from Basavanagudi. All of us were a part of this film. For me, it seemed like we were a losers’ team (laughs uproariously). Yet, the film won the National Award. The irony, for me, was that though we had lost in real life, we had become winners on screen.
We shot the film in Theerthahalli as that is the place where Kuvempu was from. Whatever backdrop I needed for the film, I found it in this place and also chose Tara to play the female lead.
For music I approached C Ashwath as he had composed the music for Mayamruga. I was impressed with the manner in which he composed the tune for my TV series. I had approached him at a studio. During his break, we walked towards a bench where someone had left their harmonium. Ashwath took the harmonium and composed the tune in just a minute. The title track of the serial is still popular. That was the genius he was.
I also wanted Manohar to contribute music for my film and shared my thought with Ashwath, who was glad to collaborate with the latter. That, I believe, is the first time the two composers came together to create music. Ashwath composed music for three songs for Mathadana and I still remember the journey with the two composers as beautiful.
One thing I cannot forget is the jathre (a procession) scene in the film. We wanted a huge crowd for that particular scene. Shashidhar Adap was the art director. In Bengaluru, if there is a shooting, people just throng to watch us at work, but not in Theerthahalli. People there are least interested in films. We wanted around 8,000 junior artistes for that scene and the problem was hiring so many people would double our budget for that one day.
Hence, Shashidhar came up with an idea. He created a pamphlet that read ‘Everybody is invited to watch the shooting of our film at so and so place at this date and time... And all those who are present will get a chance to be shot in the film’. And he distributed it to the people there. As a result, 12,000 people landed on the sets and the jathre scene was shot.
The biggest challenge was to overcome the shortage of budget. We did overcome those challenges with such creative ideas.
As told to Shilpa Sebastian R
This column chronicles a filmmaker’s first efforts