Padayappa


Padayappa is a 1999 Indian Tamil-language drama film, written and directed by K. S. Ravikumar, and featuring Sivaji Ganesan, Rajinikanth, Ramya Krishnan and Soundarya in the lead roles, with Abbas, Lakshmi, Radha Ravi and Nassar in supporting roles. The soundtrack album and background score were composed by A. R. Rahman.
The plot revolves around Padayappa, an engineer whose father dies of shock soon after he is defrauded and loses his property to his foster brother. Neelambari initially loves Padayappa, but plans to take revenge on him and his love interest Vasundhara after his family humiliates her father. The rest of the story deals with Padayappa climbing back to financial success and arranging his daughters' marriage while overcoming all the obstacles placed by Neelambari.
Principal photography for the film began in October 1998. Padayappa was released on 10 April 1999 on the eve of Tamil New Year's Day. This was the first Tamil film to be released worldwide with 210 prints and 700,000 audio cassettes. It became Tamil cinema's highest-grossing film at that point. Ramya Krishnan's performance was praised, winning her a Filmfare Award under the Best Actress category. The film also won five Tamil Nadu State Film Awards.

Plot

Padayappa is a mechanical engineer who returns to his village after three years to attend his sister's wedding. Padayappa's family have been the richest landlords of their village and chieftains for their region. Padayappa's great grandfather had decreed all Hindu marriages in their region must take place in the Murugan temple, after the chieftain has verbally confirmed the consent from bride and groom. This tradition has been followed for a century and now Padayappa's father is the chieftain. Padayappa's younger sister is engaged to their maternal cousin Suryaprakash. During his stay, he comes across Vasundhara, and falls in love with her. However, shyness and fear of Neelambari whose family employs her and her mother as servants, prevents Vasundhara from initially expressing her feelings. Neelambari is Suryaprakash's spoilt US-returned sister who also loves Padayappa.
Unexpectedly, Padayappa's father's foster brother demands half share in the family property, citing Padayappa's father's donations to the poor are draining the family resources and he himself has three children to take care of. Padayappa's father abruptly refuses to divide the property and instead gives the entire property to his foster brother. This forces Padayappa's family to leave their home, to a plot of land bought using Padayappa's salary. Unable to bear this shock, Padayappa's father dies at the entrance of the house. Suryaprakash silently cancels his wedding with Padayappa's sister and marries the daughter of Padayappa's father's foster brother, who now owns the property of Padayappa's father.
Meanwhile, Padayappa discovers that a hill on his newly purchased property is composed of solid granite, which allows him to start a granite business, from which he becomes exponentially rich. He uses the money to help the poor in his village, and provide them jobs. As his business flourishes, his family is able to once again settle down. Padayappa assumes his father's position as the village chieftain, and his sister marries an engineer who works in his company. When Neelambari learns about Padayappa's love for Vasundhara, she becomes jealous of her, and her parents beg Padayappa's widowed mother to allow Neelambari to marry Padayappa. However, to everyone's surprise, Padayappa's mother humiliates Padayappa's maternal uncle in front of the entire village when she agrees to a marriage between Padayappa and Vasundhara with Vasundhara's mother, her brother's servant. Unable to bear the humiliation, Padayappa's maternal uncle kills himself.
When Neelambari tries to kill Vasundhara by letting a bull loose on her, Padayappa saves her. Neelambari tries to poison Vasundhara, which fails after a snake knocks down the milk she poisons. Afterwards, Padayappa and Vasundhara marry. After the wedding, Neelambari locks herself in a room in Suryaprakash's house, thinking only about Padayappa for 18 years, during which Suryaprakash becomes the state's home minister. In between, Padayappa finds his father's foster brother in trouble financially as he was pulled out of the family house by a financier Krishnasamy Mudaliar, from whom he had borrowed money on interest. Padayappa helps his father's foster brother, who in turn becomes indebted to him and seeks Padayappa's pardon for his misdeeds; Padayappa forgives him.
Neelambari plans her revenge on Padayappa, now a father of two daughters. Suryaprakash also has a son, Chandru, who studies at the same college as Padayappa's elder daughter, Anitha. Neelambari advises Chandru to make Anitha fall in love with him. At the same time, Padayappa plans to get Anitha married to his sister's son. Neelambari, having made Chandru pretend to fall in love with Anitha, plans to humiliate Padayappa by making Anitha say that she does not wish to marry a groom of her parents' choice and that she is in love with someone else. At the marriage ceremony, after Anitha does what Neelambari told her, Padayappa makes an oath to unite Anitha with her lover by the next Muhurta day, or commit suicide. Padayappa discovers that Chandru really did fall in love with Anitha even though he was only initially pretending to do so on Neelambari's advise. When Padayappa takes Chandru and Anitha to the temple to get married, Neelambari and Suryaprakash give chase to stop them. Suryaprakash is killed in a car accident during the chase.
Armed with a machine gun, Neelambari reaches the temple where Chandru and Anitha are married. When she tries to kill Padayappa, he saves her life by preventing a bull from attacking her, while at the same time dodging the bullets she fires at him. Rather than live with the humiliation of knowing she was unsuccessful in avenging her father's death, as well as having her life saved by her enemy, Neelambari commits suicide, promising to take revenge on Padayappa in her next birth. Padayappa prays for her soul to be at peace and eventually attain salvation.

Cast

Development

In September 1998, Rajinikanth announced his next project, titled Padayappa, with K. S. Ravikumar as director. The story of this film was taken in part from the historical Tamil novel, Ponniyin Selvan, by Kalki Krishnamurthy. The title Padayappa is a corruption of Aarupadayappa a sobriquet for Murugan and his six abodes. The film was produced by K. Sathya Narayana, M. V. Krishna Rao, and H. Vittal Prasad under their production banner, Arunachala Cine Creations, along with P. L. Thenappan as co-producer. Lalitha Mani was the choreographer for the song sequences. Jyothi Krishna, son of producer A. M. Rathnam, was involved in the development of the film's script.

Casting

Rajinikanth was cast as the title character, a city-based engineer who returns to his ancestral village. Ramya Krishnan was cast as Padayappa's cousin Neelambari. The character is based on Nandini, a vengeful woman in Ponniyin Selvan. Meena and Nagma were earlier considered for the role. Ramya Krishnan said she accepted the role because "it was opposite a superstar and that too the character was a negative one, no one was ready to do it, but I did it. I didn't have any second thoughts."
Simran was considered for the role of Vasundhara, before the role went to Soundarya, who had earlier worked with Rajinikanth in Arunachalam. Ravikumar revealed that makers could not sign Simran due to her busy schedule and Meena was also considered for Vasundhara's role. Shalini was touted to play the role of Padayappa's sister, but the role eventually went to Sithara. Abbas was cast as Chandru.
The characterisation of the older Padayappa — bearded, with sunglasses — is based on Rajinikanth's look as the character Manik Baashha in Baashha. Vijayakumar was the initial choice before Sivaji Ganesan was cast as Padayappa's father; Padayappa was his penultimate release before Pooparika Varugirom. His character's appearance, with a mutton-chop moustache, is based on a similar role he played in Thevar Magan. Manivannan was cast as the foster brother of Ganesan's character.

Filming

Padayappa began principal photography at the Ragavendra Kalyana Mandapam on 1 October 1998. The film's climax scene was one of the first to be shot, and was filmed in one take using two cameras. Around 2,000 extras were used for the scene. The car that was used in the scene which introduced Neelambari in the film belonged to Ravikumar. Ravikumar used the newly purchased car in the film at Rajinikanth's insistence. Filming also took place in Mysore. The Vadapalani-based shop, D. V. Nehru wigs, supplied the wigs that were sported by Ganesan in the film. In an August 2016 interview with Sudhir Srinivasan of The Hindu, Ravikumar mentioned that a scene where Padayappa uses his shawl to pull down a swing from the ceiling on which he sits after not being given a chair to sit by Neelambari, was inspired by a sequence in the Indian epic Ramayana. The sequence features the Hindu god Hanuman making a seat using his tail after Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, does not provide the former a chair to sit.
"Kikku Yerudhey" was the last song sequence to be shot. For the sequence, Rajinikanth required Ravikumar to sport an outfit similar to Rajinikanth's, and enact a small part in the song. Rajinikanth also selected the part of the song where Ravikumar would make his appearance. After reluctantly agreeing to do the part, the sequence where they both appear together was filmed. Rajinikanth said he felt the shot did not look right, and re-takes for Ravikumar's sequence were done. After the re-takes were completed, Rajinikanth admitted that the first sequence was fine. When Ravikumar asked the cameraman why he had not told him earlier, the cameraman replied by saying that Rajinikanth wanted Ravikumar to do seven takes, to teach him a lesson for all the takes that Ravikumar had required of Rajinikanth.

Themes

Writing for PopMatters, Ranjani Krishnakumar noted that Padayappa underlined Rajinikanth's political manoeuvres, evident when his character's lover sings "Kaadhal therdhalil kattil sinnathil vetri petru nee vaazgha".

Music

The film's soundtrack and background score were composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Vairamuthu. The soundtrack was released through Star Music. Strips of herbal rejuvenator capsules were sold along with the film's music cassettes. Before the film's release, Rahman asked Ravikumar if the soundtrack could be released in August 1999. Ravikumar informed Rahman that he had already discussed a release date with the press, and that Rahman would be blamed for any delay. To make the deadline, Rahman did a live re-recording of both the soundtrack and score to finish them on time.
The credits for the song "Vetri Kodi Kattu", sung by Palakkad Sreeram, initially went to Malaysia Vasudevan, who publicly stated that the credits for the song should have been attributed to Sreeram. Rahman requested the company who manufactured the audio cassettes to make the change. The song "Minsara Kanna" is based on the Vasantha raga, while "Vetri Kodi Kattu" is based on the Keeravani raga. "Minsara Kanna" established Srinivas as a leading singer in the film industry.
Singer Charulatha Mani, in her column for The Hindu, "A Raga's journey", called "Minsara Kanna" a "mind-blowing piece". Srikanth Srinivasa of the Deccan Herald wrote, "The music by , to Vairamuthu’s lyrics, sounds good while the movie is on, though whether without the presence of they would have, is another thing." S. Shiva Kumar of The Times of India was more critical of the soundtrack, and called it "lacklustre".

Release

Padayappa was released on 10 April 1999 on the eve of Tamil New Year's Day. It was the first Tamil film to be released worldwide with over 200 prints, and 700,000 audio cassettes. The film's rights in Japan were sold for US$50,000, which was the highest an Indian film fetched for commercial release in 1999. Co-producer Thenappan registered the film posters as a Class 34 trademark in 1998, to be used for trademarking such items as beedis, cigarettes, cheroots and tobacco, making it the first instance of brand extension in the Tamil film industry. The pre-release business of the film's overseas rights amounted to 30 million. According to an estimate by trade analyst Sreedhar Pillai, the value of the theatrical and satellite rights for Padayappa was approximately 20 million.

Reception

Critical response

Ananda Vikatan, in its original review of the film dated 25 April 1999, wrote that the original stamp of Rajinikanth style could be seen in the film several times, adding that Ramya Krishnan had matched Rajinikanth and created a royal path separately, and concluded that the film was exclusively made for Rajinikanth's fans, giving it a rating of 41 out of 100. Srikanth Srinivasa of Deccan Herald gave the film a positive verdict, claiming that the "positive energy generated by this film is simply astounding", and labelling Rajinikanth's role as "terrific". Ganesh Nadar of Rediff also gave a positive review, praising Ramya Krishnan's performance in the film, and said that she "does a fantastic job", concluding, "... if you are a Rajni fan, this film is vintage stuff."
P. C. Balasubramanianram and N. Ramakrishnan, in their book, Grand Brand Rajini, said, "Padayappa, in one way, stands testimony to Rajini's life itself." However, S. Shiva Kumar of The Times of India was critical of the film's allusions to the actor's political career, stating that the film was "more style than substance". Sify praised Ramya Krishnan's performance but criticised Rajinikanth, stating that he had nothing to do but "be the Superman and spew dialogues". The reviewer concluded, "Technically the film has nothing much to offer."

Box office

Padayappa was a box office success; T. R. Vivek of Business Today says that the film was estimated to have earned 440 million worldwide, with a total of 380 million at the domestic box office, and 60 million overseas. According to The Tribune, it was the highest grossing Tamil film at that point of time before being surpassed by another Rajinikanth film, Chandramukhi, although Rediff stated in 2014 that Padayappa record was surpassed by Ghilli.
The film had a theatrical run of 100 days in 86 theatre centres, and was dubbed into Telugu under the title Narasimha. The dubbed version was also a commercially successful venture, and had a theatrical run of 50 days in 49 theatres.

Accolades

Ramya Krishnan won the Best Actress at the Filmfare Awards. The film also won five Tamil Nadu State Film Awards.
AwardCeremonyCategoryNomineeOutcome
Filmfare Awards South46th Filmfare Awards SouthBest Actress – TamilRamya Krishnan
Tamil Nadu State Film AwardsTamil Nadu State film Awards – 1999Best Film K. S. Ravikumar
Tamil Nadu State Film AwardsTamil Nadu State film Awards – 1999Best ActorRajinikanth
Tamil Nadu State Film AwardsTamil Nadu State film Awards – 1999Best Actress Ramya Krishnan
Tamil Nadu State Film AwardsTamil Nadu State film Awards – 1999Best Male PlaybackSrinivas
Tamil Nadu State Film AwardsTamil Nadu State film Awards – 1999Best Make-up ArtistSundaramoorthy

Cancelled sequel

Padayappas final cut initially lasted for 19 reels, which was considered too lengthy. Rather than cut the film, Rajinikanth suggested to Ravikumar to allot two intervals. He screened the uncut film for actor Kamal Haasan, who told him not to go for two intervals. Haasan suggested Padayappa be edited in a way that would not disturb the storyline, so Ravikumar and the editor Thanigachalam managed to bring the film down to 14 reels. When Kumudams reporter Kannan learnt about the scenes which had been cut, he asked Rajinikanth to release them as Padayappas sequel. Rajinikanth immediately spoke to Ravikumar about the possibility, but was informed that those reels had been destroyed.

Legacy

With the success of Padayappa, Ramya Krishnan, who up to that point in time had only performed glamorous roles, showed her versatility as an actress. The character Neelambari reappears in Baba, where she spots Baba but sees him in her mind's eye in his Padayappa attire; she asks him the time. Her brother drags her away, and berates her for still not overcoming Padayappa. Ramya Krishnan and Nasser reprised their roles in this film. The success of Padayappa led to a film being named after one of its songs, Minsara Kanna, starring Vijay with actress Kushboo appearing in a negative role similar to Ramya Krishnan's in Padayappa; another song from the film, Vetri Kodi Kattu, became the name of a 2000 film directed by Cheran. Ramya Krishnan played the role of Malini in the film Arumugam, in which her character was similar to Neelambari. Ramya Krishnan's character in the television serial, Kalasam, was also named Neelambari. Actress Priyamani, in an interview with Prathibha Joy of The Times of India, stated her character in the Kannada film Ambareesha, is similar to Neelambari. In Chetan Bhagat's novel, , when Krish Malhotra, the novel's protagonist, travels to Nungambakkam by auto rickshaw, the auto rickshaw driver stops to worship a poster of Padayappa.
Some of the quotes from the film that became popular were: "En Vazhi Thani Vazhi." ; "Poda Andavane Namapakam Irukan’’ ; "Adhigama Aasaipadra Aambalaiyum, Adhigama Kobapadra Pombalaiyum, Nalla Vazhndhadha Sarithirame Kidaiyathu", "Kashtapadama Edhuvum Kidaikkathu. Kashtapadama Kidaikirathu Ennikkum Nilakkathu" ; the English dialogue "Anger is the cause of all miseries. One should know how to control it, otherwise life will become miserable", and Neelambari's dialogue "Vayasanalum un style um azhagum inum unna vitu pogala". One of Rajinikanth's climactic dialogues in the film "En Vazhi Thani Vazhi" was used as the title of a 2015 film directed by Shaji Kailas. It was also used as the title of a 2010 book on branding by Sridhar Ramanujam. Scenes and dialogues from the film were parodied in various other films, notable of which are Thirupathi Ezhumalai Venkatesa, En Purushan Kuzhandhai Maadhiri, Annai Kaligambal, Sivaji. Vel, Siva Manasula Sakthi, Malai Malai, Vanakkam Chennai,, All in All Azhagu Raja and Anbanavan Asaradhavan Adangadhavan. Padayappa was also parodied in the Star Vijay comedy series Lollu Sabha, in an episode appropriately named Vadayappa.
To celebrate the 39th anniversary of Rajinikanth in the film industry, Digitally Inspired Media, a Chennai-based digital agency, made 39 posters of some of his films, in which Padayappa was included. The posters feature one "punch" line from the film, a representative image, and the year of the film's release. On Rajinikanth's 64th birthday, an agency named Minimal Kollywood Posters designed posters of Rajinikanth's films, in which the Minion characters from the Despicable Me franchise are dressed as Rajinikanth. The digital art was hand drawn on a digital pad by Gautham Raj. One of the posters depicted a minion sitting on a swing and dressed like Rajinikanth's character in Padayappa, reminiscent of the swing scene.