Periyar Movie releases today
1st May 2007
The movie Periyar releases today. I don't know whether I will get to watch it in the theatres. For Gnana Rajasekharan the director of the movie this is a second in row. He had earlier directed a movie on Bharatiar the rebel poet who is still dear to Tamil loving people across the world. Read an interview with the Director on the Periyar m0vie making and I was once again impressed with this man's clarity and courage. Periyar has been most misunderstood in Tamilnadu simply because it suited the political convenience of those who supposedly are his followers.
The three important points about Periyar that I think are long forgotten in Tamilnadu have been highlighted by the Director in the interview, if he has managed to get across these in the film he has rendered a service to this state. These are:
1. That he was not against 'brahims' but against 'brahminism' as it wa
s practiced at the point in time
2. That though he was an atheist, his atheism position was more a by-product of a social justice agenda rather than a philosophical quest and perhaps the most significant according to me
3. His interaction with Gandhi, where he tells Gandhiji in 1928 or so that his faith in people will ultimately get him killed by them which proves to be true twenty years later
I hold it that he is perhaps the only thinker of the Dravidian movement and much of the remaining are a cinematic post script who will be forgotten once their kind of stunt loses currency in the Tamilnadu politics. Maybe the effort of Rajasekharan will bring in some fresh look at Periyar's life by people who are not necessarily his followers, thereby bringing some fresh air into his usurped and stifled legacy.
The movie Periyar releases today. I don't know whether I will get to watch it in the theatres. For Gnana Rajasekharan the director of the movie this is a second in row. He had earlier directed a movie on Bharatiar the rebel poet who is still dear to Tamil loving people across the world. Read an interview with the Director on the Periyar m0vie making and I was once again impressed with this man's clarity and courage. Periyar has been most misunderstood in Tamilnadu simply because it suited the political convenience of those who supposedly are his followers.
The three important points about Periyar that I think are long forgotten in Tamilnadu have been highlighted by the Director in the interview, if he has managed to get across these in the film he has rendered a service to this state. These are:
1. That he was not against 'brahims' but against 'brahminism' as it wa
s practiced at the point in time2. That though he was an atheist, his atheism position was more a by-product of a social justice agenda rather than a philosophical quest and perhaps the most significant according to me
3. His interaction with Gandhi, where he tells Gandhiji in 1928 or so that his faith in people will ultimately get him killed by them which proves to be true twenty years later
I hold it that he is perhaps the only thinker of the Dravidian movement and much of the remaining are a cinematic post script who will be forgotten once their kind of stunt loses currency in the Tamilnadu politics. Maybe the effort of Rajasekharan will bring in some fresh look at Periyar's life by people who are not necessarily his followers, thereby bringing some fresh air into his usurped and stifled legacy.
Comments
though i saw your reason for not writing in tamil,
i feel it will be much closer to people if the blogs are in tamil
i suggest you maintain 2 blogs ,one in tamil , one in english
for creating the tamil one,
just use the tool quillpad , http://quillpad.in/tamil
this will help you in creating tamil blogs in no time peacefully