The Last Of The Cultural Icons

During the meeting, he had appeared lost in eternity. The way he spoke lookedas if he was completely detached from the present. Nostalgia seemed to be hisonly driving force. As he rested on his pillow of memories, his eyes grew moistand he constantly wiped it from the tip of his white dhoti. There was a temperedmeditative resonance in his voice. I had wondered if this man, at the centre offive-crore Kannadigas’ hysterical extolment, was very lonely inside. Or else,why would he escape from his glorious present?

In May 2004, I had met Rajkumar for more than four hours for a profile andphoto-shoot. That was my first and only meeting. Now, two years down the line,when he is making his final journey through the streets of Bangalore, I amtrying to desperately recall our meeting and the snatches of conversation wehad, but strangely I remember very little. Perhaps there was no conversation atall. The only thing that has remained etched in my mind is the man’sloneliness. We got up thrice to leave, but he gestured to us (my photographercolleague and me) to sit down for some more time. After more cups of juice andtea and well past his lunch time, after having unsuccessfully pestered us to eatwith him, he walked out of his Sadashivanagar bungalow to see us off. As I wasgetting into my car, he had asked me to watch my head. This warning had touchedme, as I thought it was some linking up of destiny. My father had just thenrecovered from a near fatal clot in the brain.

In retrospect, I think my Bengali-speaking colleague had a better time thatday. They did not understand a word of each others’ language, but Saibal Dasgot Rajkumar to do all that he wanted for his camera. Rajkumar even performed aspecial pooja to the Ganesha installed at his bungalow gate. As Saibal keptclicking ceaselessly, Rajkumar grew anxious; he thought he was failing togenerate the right expressions and therefore the photographer was exhausting hisfilm rolls. And at that privileged moment, I told the veteran actor not to worryabout his expressions. "Photographers go mad the moment they see celebrities,"I had quipped. He had laughed and remained calm during the rest of the shoot.

But if Saibal had not been so persistent, we would not have probably capturedthe immortal frame in which Rajkumar is standing in front of his father’sdramatic portrait. The picture on the wall showed his father in the mythologicalrole of Kamsa sporting a thick, scary, rolled up handle-bar moustache. As Iguided Rajkumar to that picture, he stood with his hands folded in front of it.Saibal looked at me with displeasure. Not knowing what to do, I told Rajkumarthat ‘folded-hands’ was not working. He gave a smile, unlocked his hands andstarted rolling the imaginary moustache on his clean shaven face. That was thepicture and the final one. "So, until I rolled my moustache, this man did notstop shooting, ask him if he is scared and needs some water," he had said,laughing.

Something else that stands out from that day’s experience is Rajkumarmaking a brief clinical examination of his two selves. I did not think of itmuch then, but now when he is dead, it echoes loud in my mind. I had asked himwhat he thought of fame: "Which fame, the fame that Rajkumar achieved? I don’tknow much about it. Rajkumar the actor, the language activist and cultural iconis different from this mortal, unlettered Muthuraj. Rajkumar is a creation ofthe public, they created him for their own needs, but this Muthuraj does notunderstand all that. He will go to the grave as his father’s son, a simplevillage guy who took to acting to feed his wife and children."

For the rest, let me revisit what I wrote for Outlook then. There aresome fresh new paragraphs, as afterthoughts of course:

Rajkumar, the Kannada superstar and cultural icon had just completed 75 years(April 24) and it was also the golden jubilee year of his film career (on May 7,1954, his first film Bedara Kannapa was released), but there was completesilence across Karnataka. There was hardly any celebration for this personal andprofessional landmark of a man who was largely responsible for creating, throughhis films, the feel and extent of the Kannada land in post-Independent India.

"Even before the states were linguistically reorganized, the defaultborder of Karnataka was the last point where Rajkumar's films were beingdistributed," observed linguist and acting vice-chancellor of KannadaUniversity Prof. K V Narayana. Rajkumar's own birthday message had alsoreflected certain tiredness: "I have no energy to act anymore. In mycurrent state I can only act the role of a handicapped person." Histiredness, as if, was symptomatic of all local cultures.

In an era of globalization, had local cultures moved on, leaving behind iconslike Rajkumar who once imparted identity and meaning to their existence? I hadwondered. Was Rajkumar, like one of those former maharajas without a kingdom,confined to his palace with just a few loyal retainers? Were there others whohad taken his throne with the boundaries blurring, having become seamless andvirtual? Or had the ground rules of public adulation and 'iconhood' undergone asea change?

A lot of these hazy cultural currents seemed to be determining the dynamicsof the game and this was perhaps precisely what had apparently made Rajkumar thelast of the Kannada cultural icons. Essentially, the current heroes in thecultural field, unlike Rajkumar, seem to have a pan-Indian and a pan-worldreach. It is quite easy to assume as to where the real competition comesfrom. Be it from corporate heroes such as Narayanamurthy or cricketers likeKumble and Dravid. "In the recent past, people who have succeeded in thepursuit of mammon have jolted the positions of heroes firmly rooted in thesoil," Prof. Narayana had pointed out.

It was amazing then as to how a Google-search for Rajkumar was dominated bythe Veerappan kidnap episode, as if he never existed before the unsavouryepisode. Like the times modern, the Internet too ignores history. In fact, bythe time the incident happened in August 2000, Rajkumar had acted in 205 Kannadafilms, amounting to nearly 25 per cent of films produced by the Kannada filmindustry in its entire history.

However, many people in the industry saw the Veerapan kidnap episode as theturning point for the hero's "fall from the pedestal". The incidentexposed the mortality of a star, said a film producer. "How could peopleaccept their hero pleading for release from an enigmatic villain, many of whomhe had tackled single-handedly on the screen?" the producer had asked.

But there were disagreements to this argument: "The Veerapan incidentwas probably the last straw, but the decline had started as early as themid-70s, when different groups like the Dalits, farmers, Backward Classes hadstarted asserting their identities and the idea of a single hero unifying theentire culture or the idea of centralized leadership had begun to wane. That isalso partially the reason as to why we do not see any tall leader post-DevarajUrs, in the political arena of Karnataka," argued a cultural historian.

An icon or a hero has to reinvent himself constantly to survive generationalchanges and probably there was no such scope in the case of Rajkumar. A dozenchildren with middle class backgrounds, in the age group of 18-25, confessedthat they were not exactly familiar with Kannada movies. It appeared that thebaton had simply not been passed on, not just in the Rajkumar case, but in thecontext of the Kannada language itself. The stagnating readership of Kannadanewspapers and sales of Kannada books could be viewed as strong indicators ofthis change. "Kannada’s present crisis is like my knee-pain, it keepsreminding you that you are reaching the end," Rajkumar had said.

The situation was entirely different a couple of decades ago: "WhenKannada print journalism was witnessing a boom in the 70s and 80s, the firstcover of any newly-launched magazine invariably carried the picture of Rajkumar.This ensured a certain commercial and cultural acceptance," pointed out aveteran film journalist.

With the IT revolution the Kannada middle class, that supported Rajkumar'sposition within the culture, appeared terribly distracted. The generation thatswore by Rajkumar had grown old and it is an intelligent guess that most of themare taking care of their grandchildren in the West Coast of the US, occasionallyplaying the songs sung by Rajkumar on their hi-fi system.

The middle class amnesia appears to have taken a toll of all that is local.One of their new heroes, Narayanamurthy, at one point even recommended activepursuance of the English language at the cost of the Kannada tongue to just beahead in business. Contrast this with the solemn vow that Rajkumar took at thebeginning of his career that he would never act in any language movie other thanthe Kannada ones, this when he could have easily been a multilingual star in theSouth.

Besides the middle class, Rajkumar had a huge fan following even among otherclasses and there was also an active fan club to represent it. When a movementwas launched in the early 80s to demand widespread use of Kannada in all walksof life, Rajkumar led the movement from the front and around that time his fanclub was tempted to test his popularity at the polls, but Rajkumar preferredsaintly self-banishment from public life and at a later point even clarifiedthat he had nothing to do with the fan club. This was in complete contrast towhat happened in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

The 'apoliticalness' of Rajkumar endeared him to the middle class. Writer andfilm personality M Bhaktavatsala put it across succinctly: "Rajkumar wasnever comfortable playing God like N T Rama Rao who was literally worshipped asLord Krishna, nor was he a political animal like MGR, he was always a greatdevotee. It was his roles like Bakta Kumbara, Bedara Kannappa, Bakta Ambareesha,Santa Tukaram that brought him closer to the people."

Rajkumar himself seemed to confirm it: "I have always been a viewer, inthe sense that I have never kept the focus on myself. I see god in myadmirers," he had said.

There were also other things that built the Raj Kumar mystique: His simplelifestyle, glowing humility, his devotional songs, the big dose of liberalhumanism in his films, practice of yoga, abstention from alcohol and tobacco anda genuine thirst for anonymity. His off-screen image matched his on-screen one.There is not a single frame in his movies in which he is seen consuming alcoholor smoking a cigarette. Also, the best model of standardized Kannada tonguecould be found in Rajkumar's speech.

But then what do we do about the disconnect between a leader and his people?The man had skirted the issue and was at his unpretentious best: "I havedone nothing for Kannada or Karnataka, all that I have done is to feed my familyand myself, I just feel blessed that people put me on a pedestal" hedeclared. He referred to his knee-pain and said: "It has been there andwhen I cannot banish it, I have made the pain part of my body."

Probably that is what he had done with the cultural situation too, he hadcome to accept the inevitable. Rajkumar was the last in a line of icons thatonce defined Kannada pride at its most visionary and liberal. These includedliterary giants like D.R. Bendre, Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, Shivarama Karanth,A.N. Krishna Rau and K.V. Puttappa, and Sir M. Vishvesvaraya, the visionaryengineer and Diwan of the erstwhile Mysore state.

One of the greatest powers we can ordinarily hope to have is to influence theway we are remembered. That abortive Google search did not bode well: if thisgentle hero of Kannada culture were remembered only for an unfortunate encounterwith a brigand, it would truly be a travesty of fate.

With his passing on, perhaps it is only fitting that we are reminded of hislasting legacy, even as there is no logic at hand to explain the mob fury thatburnt down vehicles, stoned buildings and even killed policemen on duty.Rajkumar’s fans have always offered him a frenzied adulation, but one hadhoped that they would honour the solemnity and quiet dignity of death.