The protagonist ;Vidheyan’
or the ‘servant’ in the Malayalam film ‘#Vidheyan’ is played by one
M.R.Gopakumar. The feudal Patialdar is
played by #Mamooty. This film along with ‘Pondhan
Mada’, in which Mamooty plays the role of the servant to that of the Master Nasrudin
Shah, both of which were released in 1994, got Mamooty his second Bharath
Award.
While Pondhan Mada is a breezy story showing the song like relationship between an elegant master and a loyal servant, ‘Vidheyan’, portrays the roller-costar relationship between the two.
Right from the very first scene where the servant-to-be Thommi is insulted and humiliated by the feudal Pateldar, upto the last till the servant exults in his freedom, it is a continuous emotional turmoil for the servant.
He has come to Karnataka from Wayanad along with his wife, only to land in a place which is ruled by a ruthless feudal land lord (Pateldar), who though said to be good in the beginning with the only fault of being short tempered, was progressively spoilt by the society around, by liberal supply of liquor and women for achieving 'their' ends.
When Thommy comes to know that the Pateldar had broken into his house and when the next morning one of the henchmen of the Patedar comes to fetch him saying that Master had called him, Thommy, burning with indignation shouts back, “whose master?”. His wife gives him an option to die, together. But the weakness within the servant prohibits. He agrees to live together, ‘somehow’. And for that he compromises and ends up as a helper in the liquor shop of the Pateldar and becomes his most trusted servant. He is the only person having access to his house and whom Pateldar’s wife feeds with her own hands.
But Paeldar wants to kill that wife of his, for her fault of trying to counsel him. Only one thing he is bothered about. That his wife should not know that he killed her. For that he enlists the help of the servant. But in the fiasco, it is the servant who gets shot and it is the wife of the Pateldar who saves him and even visits him in his house when he lies convalescing. Thommy has a great attachment for the lady. Pateldar even asks him, ‘You like Saroja akka a lot, isn’t it?’.
Ultimately Pateldar accomplishes the murder of his wife, alone and gets the help of Thommy to make it look like a suicide. Thommy, all in tears, does as ordered by his master.
The scene where a person produces his wife and children along with another man accusing her of having run away with the other man is a classic scene. After his tiring previous night, when he had visited Thommy’s wife, Pateldar is seated in his house and Thommy is massaging his back. “Slowly, it is hurting,’ says Pateldar. Thommy slows his pace in the massaging. It is then that the dispute is brought before the feudal lord. On hearing the dispute, Pateldar gets up and slaps the complainant husband saying, ‘If you cannot properly maintain a lady, why do you want one?; The camera fixes on the face of Thommy. Next, Pateldar kicks and punishes the fellow who had taken away the other man’s wife saying, ‘how can you take the other man’s wife?’. The camera again strays to show the face of Thommy. Then as if the message should be made further clear, Pateldar warns the lady saying that only because it is not proper to beat a lady that he is refraining from doing so and sends her and children with her husband. Thommy is a witness to all this. Knowing absolutely well that none of the preaching would apply to him and his master.
On one hand Thommy is loyal to his master to the extent that he is prepared to help him to kill his wife (though with a heavy heart – when he requests her for gruel, he adds with lump in his throat ‘pl don’t add salt’) and also is on the other hand prepared to help the foes of his master to enable them to kill him.
He dislikes his master interfering with his familial life, and yet is enthralled that his wife had progressively started smelling the scent used by his master. His wife also giggles to that and Thommy assures her to get the same scent for her on his own. This perhaps is the point in the film where servitude is highlighted at its best.
At the same time, the self respect of the couple is also in a subtle manner shown when in a scene the saree purchased and gifted by the Pateldar for Omana through Thommy, immediately after his first visit to her, is shown as unused and just hanging from a string, in the back ground of a scene, long after.
When Patialdar and Thommy are about to leave into the forests because the relations of Pateldars wife are after him for her murder, Thommy’s wife Ommana weeps on Thommy’s breast. They are literally afraid. But Thommy suddenly realizes that she was doing so in the presence of Pateldar himself, suddenly gets back to his senses and perhaps remembering the brutal assault made by Pateldar on Thommi's former master, only for the fault that Thommy had shown courtesy and respect to his former boss in the presence of Pateldar, says to her, ‘don’t worry, I will not allow anything to happen to the master’.
And in the final hours of their togetherness, in the wild, when the feudal lord has no one else but this servant to depend upon, he calls him by his name and Thommy becomes overjoyed saying, ‘Master has called me by my name’. Till then he used to be called only by abusive epitaphs.
When finally Pateldar is killed, Thommy who initially has fled from the scene fearing for his own life, goes near the body and after making sure that he is dead, throws his gun into the waters. Then he laments and cries alound,’ Omanna, our Master has died’. It is as he runs towards his house that his weeping and wailing change into jumping and laughing, an accompanying background score signaling that at last he senses freedom, really.
While the depiction of the servant is a reflection of each one of us to some extent, in each and every situation in life, where we are not able fight back, pretty well knowing that we are being treated shabbily, and yet compromising with an expectation that we will be able to overcome some day, it is also depiction of our own weakness where we fall under the spell of the tormentor without our knowing it.
Apart from the drama in the interpersonal relationship between the master and servant, to me the protagonist depicts our society itself, in dealing with a Tyrant. The society detests him and also fears him. It obeys him and yet given an opportunity tries to bring him down. It exults in his company and his very scent. But it exults more when he is felled. The servant survives; so too the concept of servitude. Feudal lords come and go, servants and society go on forever.
There are several other
nuances of #AdoorGopalakrishnan in the film I have deliberately avoided highlighting
so that viewers can enjoy themselves.
