Puttanna Kanagal and the caste perspective

December 1 marked the 90th birth anniversary of S R Puttanna Kanagal, perhaps the most important filmmaker to have graced popular Kannada cinema. He successfully marketed his films on the basis of his reputation as a director. He adapted novels and used mythology and history as the basis for his films. He also introduced actors who went on to become stars. But he will be best remembered for a new kind of ‘woman’s film’, a melodrama with the woman as the key character, in a sense paralleling Hollywood’s Douglas Sirk (‘All that Heaven Allows’, 1955). 

When you look at earlier Kannada cinema, you can find stories constructed only around the male star. Kannada cinema was addressing the Mysorean identity (former Princely Mysore) and in keeping with the modes of representation appropriate to a monarchy, the father in family dramas was like a king and his wife and children as his ‘subjects’ (‘Vasanthasena’, 1941). The cherished mother in films starring Rajkumar was a later development that followed the mother in Hindi cinema (‘Awaara’, 1951). Kannada cinema addressed a more traditional space and it was therefore much more patriarchal than Hindi cinema. There were, for instance, women-centric films like ‘Duniya Na Mane’ (1937) in Hindi even in the 1930s. 

Many Kannada novelists from former Mysore had been women and after making some films in Malayalam, Puttanna made his first woman’s melodrama ‘Belli Moda’ (1967) based on a novel by Triveni. This novel is set in a coffee plantation in Chikkamagaluru and is about an heiress (Kalpana). Puttanna was born a Brahmin (like Triveni) and the film is ostensibly about a Brahmin family. But being from Old Mysore the film is also deeply conservative. The romance in the film is an ‘arranged’ match between the heroine and a man known to her father (Kalyan Kumar), implying caste associations. 

Secondly, there is a parallel comic romance set among the working class (with Dwarakish) and there is no discernible link between the main story and this subplot; it is as if the two classes were consigned to stories appropriate to their hierarchical status (high melodrama and comedy)! It shows the young heiress wooed by the man for her father’s wealth and she rejecting him on discovering it — which is radical for the time. Still, caste features covertly in the story although it is not visible at first glance. The suitor’s avarice is contrasted with the generosity of the heroine’s father (K S Ashwath), who has paid for his higher education abroad. I would interpret the man’s real failing as not following his prescribed caste attribute — to value learning and not wealth. 

The conflict between caste and its expected attributes features often in Puttanna’s melodramas and his next film of importance is ‘Gejje Pooje’ (1969), based on a novel by M K Indira. Here, the studious daughter of a Devadasi (Arathi), whose unacknowledged father is a Brahmin client, is required to be a courtesan like her mother — when she possesses the ‘Brahmin qualities’ conferred upon her by her birth. To heighten the melodrama, Puttanna brings in a neighbouring Brahmin family with an ignorant son (without the requisite Brahmin qualities) that the girl has a romance with, but who does not stand by her as he should have. A ploy in Puttanna’s films is a Brahmin girl with the qualities associated with the caste being in a failed relationship with a man from the caste but without the requisite qualities supposedly of the caste.  

Puttanna’s films denote only ‘middle-class’ milieus and ‘Brahmin’ has to read into them by noting the connections. An arranged marriage, for instance, would imply a union within the caste. ‘Sharapanjara’ (1971) (novel by Triveni) is set in such a milieu and deals with a woman’s psychological ailment after giving birth but does not get the necessary support from her unfaithful husband (Gangadhar). ‘Naagarahaavu’ (1972) was perhaps Puttanna’s biggest hit and made a star out of Vishnuvardhan. Based on a novel by TaRaSu, it is also a caste lament, although about a good-hearted Brahmin boy Ramachari saddled with inappropriate qualities — since he is also a ruffian. This film is male-centric but it contains a melodramatic sub-plot about Ramachari’s failed romance with Alamelu, also a Brahmin girl whose husband pushes her into the flesh trade.         

Puttanna was deeply involved in the ethos of Old Mysore and his adaptation of its literature was a way of keeping it alive when Mysore had ceased to exist as a political entity. His film ‘Ranganayaki’ (1981) can be seen as an allegory of its decline — which is portrayed as an actress (Arathi) from a travelling theatre company joining the film industry in Bangalore. If Puttanna carries forward the conservatism of Old Mysore — including its caste attitudes — it is because he was deeply involved in its ethos. 

If a popular filmmaker can be an ‘auteur’ and pursue a single preoccupation over a number of films, Puttanna was an auteur. The trials and tribulations of those born Brahmin is central in his films — whether the Brahmin person possesses or does not possess ‘Brahmin attributes’ is a central concern. The films I have just described are among the more interesting to a critic; but he had a tempestuous personal life and his difficult relationships with actresses seems to have affected his later films, which are often unbearable in their attitudes since they demonise the women.

In ‘Maanasa Sarovara’ (1982) a middle-aged psychiatrist (Srinath) nurses a disturbed young woman (Padma Vasanthi) to sanity. The psychiatrist is heartbroken when she falls in love with his nephew, who is closer to her age. ‘Amrutha Galige’ (1984) is about a young pregnant woman who is abandoned by her lover. She then marries her lover’s selfless friend who is husband to her ‘only in name’. He dies of cancer so she can marry the biological father of her child.  

Puttanna perhaps gave more attention to women’s feelings than any other Kannada filmmaker and may have hence believed that womankind owed him something on that account. His last films can therefore be interpreted as his revenge against women for not acknowledging the debt to him. The motif of the woman not fully honouring her commitment to a selfless man is a manifestation of that. 

(The author is a well-known film critic)