Music maestro Ilayaraja ,
probably struggling for a suitable name in sheer desperation called his classic
album –“ How to name it ?”
I wonder how to name a name ? It
is not a nickname and yet it is not the person’s given name…. It is not a surname
or a middle name or even a first name. It is a combination of all of these. You
take a person’s name ( or part thereof) and add another name , a kind of
nickname in front of it and lo behold you get a totally different name.
Villupuram Chinnaiah Mandrayar Ganesha Murthy becomes Sivaji Ganesan. This new
avatar becomes legend in the world of
Tamil films. It is this new name that I choose to call “Nom du film” or simply
put – A film name. This phenomenon is fairly unique to the Tamil Film Industry
, at least more prevalent. We can find similar names in the world of American
sports - Tiger Woods , Magic Johnson to
name a few. The old Chicago gangster world too had its fair share – Scarface
Capone , Bugsy Malone and so on.
These added “Names” can be divided
into various categories based on -
Some Attribute – usually
Physical like “Gundu” was added to both
a Karuppaiah and a Kalyanam , Semia Mani , Kulla Mani, Omakuchi Narasimhan. Smitha
, had skin as smooth as silk and became “Silk Smitha” – that is why her
character in the film “Vandichakkram” was called “Silk”. Some refer to the
actor’s ability. Mani , a comic on stage had the ability to repartee and thus
was christened “Counter” Mani - The man who could give a counter dialogue. This
over time and mispronouncing became Gounder a more familiar word to the public
and thus was born Gounda Mani , who together with Senthil ruled Tamil Cinema
for a long time. “Kutty” Padmini , remained so even when she grew up. Since
there were quite a few Subbiah’s we have a “Vellai” Subbiah as opposed to a
Karuppu Subbiah or the more famous S.V.Subbiah. “Sandow” Chinnappa Thevar – as
is obvious was a wrestler but “Payilvan” Ranganathan was not – but looked like
a wrestler. One of Tamil’s earliest action hero was “Battling” Mani – a leading
action Star like the Hindi lady counterpart “Fearless” Nadia.”Pulimoottai” or a
sack of Tamarind was what they thought Ramaswamy looked like and became
Pulimoottai Ramaswamy. “Yadhartham” Ponnuswamy was given that name for his “natural”
acting.
A film that made them famous – We
have the brothers Raja and Ravi , Director and hero of the film “Jeyam”
respectively adding the films name to their name thus making them Jeyam Raja
and Jeyam Ravi. Nizhalgal Ravi being a different person. The film Vennira Adai
was added to Murthy the Comedian and Nirmala one of the female leads. The film
“Pasi”to both Narayanan and Ms. Sathya . “Nizhalgal” Ravie ,“Poovilangu” Mohan
, “Thalaivasal Vijay” , “Sangili” Murugan all derive their name from the film
that made them popular. The film CID Shankar gave us CID Shakunthala.
Kuladeivam Rajagopal is another example.
The Telugu film “Shahukaar launched
a young girl Janaki and thus became “Sowcar” Janaki. Another Telugu film
“Sakshi” was added to Ranga Rao , to differentiate him from S.V.Ranga Rao , his
son Siva , a popular TV Star has added it to his name , a rare case of 2nd
generation “Nom du film”. The only other case being “Isari” Velan and his son
Ganesh. “Isari” being how a dialogue spoken “Adhu Seri” sounded. Which drings
us to the next category.
From Dialogues or Phrases that they said -
“Ennatha”Kanniah,“Danaal”Thangavelu,”Kaakka” Radhakrishnan,
“Ayyatheriyaadhayya” Rama Rao , “Pakodah” Khadar, “Aleik” Nirmala , who later dropped “Aleik”
and became just Vijayanirmala – The Guiness record holder for the Lady Director
with the maximum number of films in the World , are some. “Fatafat” Jayalakshmi and
“Achchacho” Chithra are some others. The Hindu is responsible for one such name
– a young comedian , playing a film producer called Dhandapani repeated the
lines “Thai ( the month) porandhaal picture start”… The character in the play
was called Thai Dhandapani – The Hindu gave him a rave review and the month of
Thai when re written in Tamil was written as Thaai or mother and thus was born
“Thaai” Nagesh.
The place they came from – We
have the most famous of them all “Gemini” Ganesh , who took the name of the
Studio that he came from. AVM Rajan too added the Studio name , but as his
Initials. Some like the famous Stage actor Visvanathan added the City he lived
in – Calcutta. Delhi Ganesh was christened so by his mentor K.Balachander to
distinguish him from Sivaji , Gemini and Jai , all other Ganeshs. TV has
another from Delhi , Delhi Kumar. Balachander’s cpmpany gave birth to
“Kavithalaya” Krishnan. We are not considering names like “Sirkaazhi”
Govindarajan , ‘Trichy” Loganathan or “Chidambaram” Jayaraman all of whom took
their Native Town as part of their Initials.
Ganesan as Sivaji
C.N.Annadorai as Kaagabhattar - the Guru.
Characters that they immortalized
– “Major Sundarrajan played Major Chandrakanth in both the Play and the film by
K.Balachander. “Nawab” Rajamanickam , “Typist” Gopu , “Thengai” Srinivasan,
“Kaththadi” Ramamurthy , Inspector Javert of Les Miserables when played in
Tamil by Seetharaman became Jhaver Seetharaman. For playing lady characters
like “Avvai” and “Kaali” (the godess) both T.K.Shanmugam and Rathinam were
given these “Titles”. Even the Road is called Avvai Shanmugam Salai today. For
his role as the Title Character “ Captain Prabhakar” Vijaykanth is known as
Captain Vijaykanth and the other popular hero Vikram – “Chiyaan” Vikram from
the character he played in the National award winning “Sethu”. The most famous
of them all being “Sivaji” Ganesan from the title role in a play by
C.N.Annadorai. Periyar saw his performance and christened him Sivaji Ganesan.
The Work done - Some like Judo Rathinam , Stunt
Somu , Gana Ulaganathan , Joker Ramudu , Clown Sindaram , Bufoon Shankara Iyer
are indicative of their field of acticity. Various action choreographer have adopted such names – Rambo Rajkumar , Super
Subbarayan , Stunt Siva , Jaquar Thangam to name a few. In case you wonder why
Jaguar is spelt that way it is another Thaai Nagesh case – Jaguar when written
in Tamil is written with a ‘q’ as there is no equivalent sounding alphabet. The
late Dharma became “Vikram” Dharma after his work in the Kamalhaasan starrer - Vikram.
“Crazy” Mohan got his name from
his play “Crazy Thieves of Palavakkam” – this was a name given to him by the
then editor of Ananda Vikatan , The other Mohan was “Loose” Mohan who specialized
in Madras Baashai (slang). The hero Mohan was fondly called “Mike” Mohan as he
belted out hit songs one after the other , sung mostly by SPB , always holding
a Mike on stage. I am grateful that I have been spared a tag – remaining plain.
This is by no means an exhaustive
list of all Tamil “Nom du Film”. As the Bard of Avon said in Romeo and Juliet – “What's in a name?
that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet “.
Posts
