Vedham Puthithu , starring Sathyaraj and Amala is a Tamil movie, written by K.Kannan - who after this movie came to be known as Vedham Puthithu Kannan - and directed by Bharathiraja. Charuhasan, Saritha, Raja and 'Nizhalgal' Ravi played supporting roles in the movie. This film is a strong critique of the caste system and its hypocrisies The film's narrative was seamless and starred Sathyaraj as Balu Thevar. It contains some of Bharathiraja's trademark directorial touches as well as many path breaking scenes, along with Kannan's powerful dialogues. This was considered the last film MGR watched, before his death.
Plot
Balu Thevar and Saritha live in a village and belong to a land-owning warrior caste, held supposedly lower in the Vedic caste system hierarchy than Brahmins. Balu Thevar though, is an atheist and speaks openly against the caste system, but is nevertheless tolerated by the villagers because he is generous in helping others in need. Their son, Raja, has just returned from the city having completed his education. He meets Vaidehi, the daughter of a Brahmin priest, and they fall in love. One night, they are together in a temple, when Balu is discovered after hiding Vaidehi. To atone for his son's "crime," Balu prostrates before the Brahmins. Afterwards Vaidehi tells her father about their love, who then tells Balu. Vaidehi's father tries to marry her off to another man in a neighboring village, but she fakes her suicide on the way and hides in the house of Nizhagal Ravi, that she happens to pass by. Thinking Vaidehi is dead, Vaidehi's father confronts Raja and accuses him of causing her death. During the discussion, they slip and fall into the waterfall and both men die. At this point, Vaidehi's younger brother, who is devoutly studying the Vedas and passing through the student phase of his Brahmin life, is left an orphan. Being considered inauspicious, since his mother, father, and sister are all dead, no one from the Brahmin community wants to take care of him. He thus wanders the streets begging for food. Balu Thevar is bothered by this, and having lost his own son, he takes him home to raise him as his own son. They give up eating meat, so as not to offend the boy. However, since the boy has been eating in a lower caste home, he is rejected by his community from learning the Vedas. Balu's wife Sarita is enraged, and promises to educate the boy instead in an English medium school. Balu Thevar makes fun of the boy telling him that it is not important to learn Vedas and worry about caste. At this point, the boy points out Balu Thevar's hypocrisy, at his preference for using his caste name, while at the same time professing against the caste system. Balu sees the merit in this argument, and immediately after this abandons all his weapons, symbols of his Thevar status, by immersing them in a river, and stops referring to himself by his caste name, going only by "Balu". Vaidehi, not knowing of Raja and her own father's death, tells Nizhalgal Ravi about her love, after which he promises to reunite them. There's a beautiful and sad song here where she imagines her happy future. Nizhalgal Ravi comes to the village and finds out what has happened and informs Vaidehi. Vaidehi, then sadly returns to her village, and informs Saritha to take care of her younger brother for the rest of his life and prepares to leave. She reunites with Sankara. Meanwhile, Krishna Iyer, a Brahmin who had wanted to marry Vaidehi, but was rebuked publicly by her, sees Vaidehi return. He riles up the villagers with news of Vaidehi's return and states that it's extremely inauspicious for the village, since her last death rites have already been performed. He also states that it is not proper for Brahmins to live in a non-Brahmin house. He then sets some hay on fire and tells the villagers it's the god's disapproval of these two "crimes." He assembles a mob of villagers towards Balu's house, and they demand that Balu kick out Vaidehi from his home. Balu refuses, a fight breaks out, and in the ensuing scuffle, he is stabbed and dies. His final request is for the villagers to live in unity, and not let caste divide them. In the poignant closing scene, Sankara, who has now lost two fathers, is seen alone in the twilight hour of the holy Sandhyavandanam ritual removing his Brahminical ponool and immersing it in a nearby stream, disgusted with and in open defiance of hypocritical Brahminical beliefs, while performing the last rites of Balu Thevar as though he were Thevar's own son.
The film has music composed by Devendran while the lyrics were written by Vairamuthu. The songs, including Kannukkul Nooru Nilava, were hits. It is a common misconception that the music was composed by composer Ilayaraja. Devendran revealed that he had composed a fusion tune which he had slightly modified as Kannukkul Nooru. The song is set in Shanmukhapriya raga.
Reception
The movie was a super hit at the box office and went on complete 150 days on the screens making it second consecutive Victory for Sathyaraj-Bharathiraja duo.
