Heroic Villains

At the ‘Paiyaa’ press meet recently Karthi has expressed his desire for doing a villain role in a film. Karthi may do it only if Suriya plays the hero. But the point here is a hero wants to be a villain. Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines villain as "a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot". With so many things negative why is that villain roles are more attractive?May be the actors feel a villain role will give more capacity for performance. And that is fairly true. Some of the best stars and character artistes of Tamil cinema originated from villain roles.Sathyaraj is one who made best use of his villain roles to ascend as a hero. From the day he started doing minor negative role in ‘Sattam En Kaiyil’ until his first full negative lead in ‘Saavi’ he must have improvised his skills of acting. After ‘Saavi’ he steadily climbed up with his own fan following. In films like ‘Nooravathu Naal’ and ‘24 Mani Neram’ it was the villain Sathyaraj who stole the show. Who could forget that ‘Kakhi Chattai’ opposite Kamal Haasan which gave new meanings to words like “Patchi” or “Thagadu” when Sathyaraj repeated it. A new modern stylish villain was born on that day. When he did an aged villain in ‘Pagal Nilavu’ the role even got the envy of the super star in addition to Rajini went to him and regretted having turned a hero so early. Rajini’s anguish was that because of carrying a hero image he is unable to do such heavy performing roles. So if you are a villain you get a parallel role to that of a hero but with out that burden of an image which would let you freak out along with show your acting prowess. Some critics even say the negative character Sathyaraj played in ‘Mr. Bharath’ outshined the hero Rajinikanth. Isn’t that great.Even Kamal Haasan started his life much analogous to Sathyaraj. K. Balachander who decided to cut this diamond from a rough stone into a faceted gem he started with giving him negative roles. What started in ‘Sollathan Ninaikiren’ molded Kamal in ‘Manmatha Leelai’ into ‘Oru Oothapoo Kan Simitukirathu’. Even the very first film of Kamal as a solo hero ‘Pattampoochi’ was a negative role much like Sathyaraj’s. All the experience has made him into a legend of today. So, today Rangaraja Nambi is as convincing as Govindarajan Ramaswamy or Avtaar Singh or Christian Fletcher or Shinghen Narahasi or Krishnaveni or Vincent Poovaraagan or Kalifullah Mukhtaar or Balram Naidu. The variety one gets to show while being a villain or character artiste is never possible as an image bound hero.What best example other than the super star Rajinikanth for this discussion. Whenever Parattai, the village loafer asked “ithu eppadi irukku?” in ‘16 Vayathinile’ Tamil Nadu was spellbound in 1977. When the abusive and sadistic husband tortured his wife in ‘Avargal’ you wanted to tear the screen him. When the wicked husband immorally took pornographic pictures of his wife in Gayathri you wanted to kill him. Oh where is that Rajini? Haven’t you felt more than once we lost these real actors after they started running around trees and bashing up more than a dozen baddies at one stroke?Of these Sathyaraj is again doing his best in character roles. But he still could not come to terms with his popularity as villain even today. When he was approached again for villain roles, Including for ‘Sivaji The Boss’, he refused to wear the villain shoes again. Kamal Haasan was as usual mentally strong to break any shackles that would prevent him moving forward on his creative journey. But it is virtually impossible for Rajinikanth to anything different. He is still The Boss.