Keerthy Suresh hits it out of the park in Suman Kumar’s film, the story of a feisty bank employee in rural Tamil Nadu, and an exploration of personal freedom, language politics and cultural identity
Nostalgia is a mysterious thing. It can be lovely or aching. Lovely when you know you can still fleetingly touch it, and aching when you know it has firmly been consigned to the ravages of time and can reside only as a memory. The lovely Raghu Thatha, directed by Suman Kumar, and starring a very in-form Keerthy Suresh, is of the latter type. It reminds you of the kind of rural, progressive family dramas — yes, they actually existed — of yore, and of a time when cinema worked with a purpose — to entertain, but not reduce the viewer, to educate but not pontificate, and to make you laugh, but not at someone. Basically, everything that you speak of only in the past tense.
In a very warm way, it also reminds one of Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy’s Kannada film Aachar & Co, set in a similar timeline. Suman writes his film so well that you are instinctively drawn to the world of Kayalvizhi Pandian (Keerthy Suresh), a bank staff who writes under the pseudonym KP, admires Periyar and his writing, and someone who opposes Hindi imposition by Ranganathachari (Anandsami) in her village of Valluvanpettai. She does not want to get married, opposes patriarchy and celebrates individual freedom and choice. She’s fierce and clear about her rights and what she’s willing to do, and, sadly, she also knows that there are still some things she cannot do, like write under her own name. There’s Tamizh Selvan (Ravindra Vijay), the government engineer who is involved in rural electrification, who has a yen for Kayal, and loves literature.
Language promotion vs imposition
Kayal’s interesting family comprises her granddad Raghothaman (MS Bhaskar), dad Pandian (Jayakumar), her long-suffering mother Lakshmiammal (Aadhira Pandilakshmi) and brother Shankar (Rajesh Balakrishnan) who marries the affectionate Poonkothai (Ismath Banu) without informing anyone. The family dynamics come through beautifully, never over the top, never underwhelming, but just right. The bond Kayal shares with her colleague Alamelu or Maami (Devadarshini, another fabulous actor, used well here) is endearing. As is the tacit understanding she has with her to-be mother-in-law Andal (Janaki).
What happens when Kayal, who has made a name for her Hindi imposition agitations (Hindi theriyaadhu, poya) and who is a role model for many kids, is forced to write an exam in the language if she has to get her transfer to Calcutta? It is interesting that Suman writes Kayal in such a way that she has all the agency. Eventually, even when the entire world is there to back her, she fights her battle. She’s clear to make her stand known. It helps that her costumes (Shruthi Manjari) — non-fancy saris and a shirt and petticoat — don’t take away from her character’s personality.
Why Raghu Thatha? Speak to any ’70s and ’80s kid in Tamil Nadu, and just the word ‘Raghuthatha’ will leave them in splits. The word, made popular by Bhagyaraj’s 1981 film Indru Poi Naalai Vaa, probably unintentionally threw the spotlight on the struggle to learn Hindi, in a state that sends the maximum number of students to write the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha exams. In the ’80s and ’90s, even villages had teachers (my Tamil teacher-cum-Hindi Pandit grandfather was one of them) who trained children for these exams. And children wrote those exams by choice, not by force. Understanding that difference is essential, even in today’s times. Treading the line between language promotion and imposition is a difficult task, but the film manages to do that effectively.
A slice of nostalgia
Suman puts together a wonderful team that delivers, and how! The casting is perfect. The jokes land, and the film utilises Keerthy’s amazing comic timing. See the frustration and pain flit across her face when the manager Ashish Gupta (Rajeev Ravindranathan) mixes up his Tamil words. An attender from Darjeeling, Suneel Kumar Lepcha, is wonderfully played by Chu Khoy Sheng, who speaks Tamil, and when he’s asked how he picked up the language, his reply explains it all. “Only if I speak Tamizh here can my family in Darjeeling eat.” This is almost like how South Indians have, for long, learnt Hindi when they moved to the North, seeking work in Central Government offices in the ’80s and ’90s.
Credit to the team that did the initial research and to the art department — Ramcharantej Labani (production designer), Aparajita Parnandi (art director), set decorators Shivani Shivaji Bhosale and Shanoo Murali and set dresser Karthik. Thanks to them, you get to see the potti kadai (petty shop) of rural Tamil Nadu with an advertisement for easy home shaving and beedis. The red-and-cream mofussil buses with rexine shutters to keep out the rain, the Lambretta scooter, the pink waterlily pond at the entrance to the village… uff, pure nostalgia for a time gone by.
The Keerthy Suresh factor
Whoever thought of the motta kadithaasi angle, please take a bow. That is the ’80s equivalent of today’s faceless anonymous social media trolls and haters. How much havoc those letters without a ‘from’ address wreaked in the homes of so many girls! The film left me longing to see more of Kayal and her grandfather’s bond — he adores her, and she him, we are told. But we hardly get to see flashes of their history.
Composer Sean Roldan plays it beautifully, his background score an apt companion for the goings-on on the screen. Cinematographer Yamini Yagnamurthy could have chosen to turn the landscape into the star, but she prudently resists the temptation. The village is lovely, yes, but the people are lovelier, and that’s what her camera focuses on. Editor TS Suresh lends this languidly-paced film a certain urgency in places and allows it to breathe most of the time, letting you savour the proceedings in Valluvanpettai.
I am the happiest for Keerthy Suresh. After a sterling performance in Mahanati (2018) that won her a National Award, she’s not really been cast in a role — barring Maamannan (2023) — that uses her or her wonderfully raspy voice well. Go watch!
Raghu Thatha is currently running in theatres
