Padmarajan - The celestial auteur

" The vineyards of imagination will not effloresce again. But whenever it blossomed, it yielded a sweet wine of art. For all the connoisseurs, who live today and who haven't even born today, to savor enough ... "

Today is the nineteenth death anniversary of one of the greatest artists to ever grace the Indian Silver Screen. P. Padmarajan, the celestial auteur who shall never be forgotten by the film loving people, the master story teller who narrated to us stories that were firmly rooted in the soil and the artist whose imagination had no boundaries. Each and every film of Padmarajan was different from the previous one. Novelty of themes was his hallmark. The innovative treatment added spice to his films. His strength lay in his literary background, he was one of the youngest writers to win the Kerala Sahitya Academy Award. The voids left behind by his untimely demise have never been filled and he was an artist who was truly unique. The lovers of serious cinema offer their profound obeisance to the master craftsman with a heavy heart and bleary eyes.

I was 10 or 11 years old when I saw Pappettan's film for the first time. Koodevide, the film that introduced me to the world of a man about whom I have read a lot, made me an instant fan of the heavenly director. It was soon followed by Namukku Parkkan Munthirithoppukal, an evergreen classic about the depth of love and soon he became the man who I admire the most in my life. Pappettan's characters were never larger than life, the star was always the story and the protagonists were just instruments to portray the tale. Pappettan's films never had predictable ending. Quite often those denouements flashed in my mind with the leisurely defined precision of images from a slow motion film. His films refused to leave my mind, more often than not they made me hopelessly sad. Padmarajan never lowered himself to a standardized level so as to conform to the accessibility and understanding of a greater audience, which unfortunately many filmmakers of his generation did. As an artist, he never compromised on the integrity of his artistry. That way he never contributed to the decline of film as a form of art and perennially flattered the thinking abilities of the audience through his works.

Padmarajan established himself as a writer. But he earned more fame through films. His writing skills helped him a lot to excel as a script writer. His characters spoke without guile and they were all distinct from each other. The depth he gave to relatively unimportant characters professes his extraordinary skills. Just as the film crazy followers of his were looking for more miracles from him, he left us in a cold January night in 1991. Like the hero of his last film, Njhan Gandharvan, he too left us forever in the night.

I really long to watch a new film by Padmarajan, to wait eagerly for the release of the film, to bask in the glory of anticipatory delight which would often rival the pleasure viewing the film would have brought me and finally to crown myself with the euphoria of aesthetic pleasure after watching it. I know very well that it is a dream that shall always remain a fantasy. But then what is art without the beauty of melancholic unattainable fantasies ? I close my bleary eyes, thank him for the eternal joy that he had offered me through his works, pray for his soul to rest in peace and whisper silently, "Pappetta, we miss you so much..."