Nenjirukkum Varai (1967 Film)
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''Nenjirukkum Varai'' () is a 1967 Indian
Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...
-language film, directed and produced by C. V. Sridhar. The film stars
Sivaji Ganesan Villupuram. Chinnaiya Manrayar Ganesamoorthy (1 October 1928 – 21 July 2001), better known by his stage name Sivaji Ganesan, was an Indian actor and film producer. He was mainly active in Tamil cinema during the latter half of the 20th centur ...
, Muthuraman, Gopalakrishnan,
K. R. Vijaya Deivanayaki, better known by her stage name K. R. Vijaya, is an Indian actress who has featured in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada films. She started her career in 1963 and has been acting for more than six decades in South Indian cinema. ...
and Geetanjali. It revolves around a man struggling with poverty, falling in love with his house owner's daughter. Sridhar initially decided to make ''Nenjirukkum Varai'' as revolving around the theme of war between India and Pakistan; the story was dropped after Sridhar learnt that
Lal Bahadur Shastri Lal Bahadur Shastri (; born Lal Bahadur Srivastava; 2 October 190411 January 1966) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India from 1964 to 1966. He previously served as Minister ...
and
Muhammad Ayub Khan Mohammad Ayub Khan (14 May 1907 – 19 April 1974) was a Pakistani military dictator who served as the second president of Pakistan from 1958 until his resignation on 1969. He was the first native Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, comm ...
signed the
Tashkent Declaration The Tashkent Declaration was signed between India and Pakistan on 10 January 1966 to resolve the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. Peace was achieved on 23 September through interventions by the Soviet Union and the United States, both of which pus ...
. Retaining the title, he developed a new story inspired by the Bengali play ''Shudha'' (). The film was shot in black-and-white to emphasise the central theme of poverty, and none of the cast members applied make-up for much of the film. ''Nenjirukkum Varai'' was released on 2 March 1967 and failed at the box office.


Plot

Raghu does odd jobs looking for a big break. He and his friend Peter rent a part of a house. The owner Natarajan's daughter is Raji and Raghu falls in love with her. Raghu meets Siva and likes his character and lets him stay in his rented house. Raji and Siva fall in love. Raghu is devastated when he learns about it, but gets over it and decides to help them. Siva is away when Raji's father dies and Raghu takes care of the orphaned Raji, who is waiting for Siva to come back for her. Meanwhile, Siva hears people gossiping about Raghu and Raji and believes they are having an affair. When Raghu confronts him, he agrees to marry Raji if Raghu agrees to go away. Raghu agrees. How they reconcile forms the rest of the story.


Cast


Production

After the success of ''
Vennira Aadai ''Vennira Aadai'' () is a 1965 Indian Tamil-language romance film, co-written, produced and directed by Sridhar. The film stars Jayalalithaa, Nirmala, Shylashri, Srikanth and Moorthy, all in their Tamil cinema debut. It was released on 14 Ap ...
'' (1965),
Sridhar Sridhar is a given name that is also sometimes used as a surname. Notable people with this name include: *Sridhar (actor), Indian actor in the Kannada film industry *Anup Sridhar, badminton player *C. V. Sridhar, screenwriter and film director *Sri ...
decided to make a film titled ''Nenjirukkum Varai'' revolving around the theme of war between India and Pakistan with
Sivaji Ganesan Villupuram. Chinnaiya Manrayar Ganesamoorthy (1 October 1928 – 21 July 2001), better known by his stage name Sivaji Ganesan, was an Indian actor and film producer. He was mainly active in Tamil cinema during the latter half of the 20th centur ...
portraying an army colonel; however Sridhar decided to drop this film after reading an article about
Lal Bahadur Shastri Lal Bahadur Shastri (; born Lal Bahadur Srivastava; 2 October 190411 January 1966) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India from 1964 to 1966. He previously served as Minister ...
and
Muhammad Ayub Khan Mohammad Ayub Khan (14 May 1907 – 19 April 1974) was a Pakistani military dictator who served as the second president of Pakistan from 1958 until his resignation on 1969. He was the first native Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, comm ...
signing the
Tashkent Declaration The Tashkent Declaration was signed between India and Pakistan on 10 January 1966 to resolve the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. Peace was achieved on 23 September through interventions by the Soviet Union and the United States, both of which pus ...
. Sridhar then developed a story from the Bengali play ''Shudha'', retaining the title ''Nenjirukkum Varai''. He did not adapt the play verbatim, but took only the basic premise and created an otherwise original story. Ganesan and Muthuraman, who were part of the dropped film, were retained for the new film. Sridhar and
Chithralaya Gopu Sadagopan (better known as Chitralaya Gopu) is an Indian screenwriter and director who works in the Tamil cinema. He has written nearly 60 films, and directed 27 of them. He scripted dramatic films such as '' Moondru Dheivangal'' and '' Shanti N ...
discussed the whole script during their car trip to Bangalore. The song "Nenjirukkum Engalukku" was shot at Beach Road, Madras. The last scene of the song was shot at the fountain near the
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...
statue in the beach. None of the cast members applied make-up for their roles. The only scene where they did was during a wedding. Cinematography was handled by Balakrishnan who earlier worked as assistant cinematographer for Gemini Studios, and editing by N. M. Shankar. Unlike Sridhar's earlier films such as ''
Kadhalikka Neramillai ''Kadhalikka Neramillai'' () is a 1964 Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy film produced and directed by C. V. Sridhar, who also conceived and co-wrote its script with Chitralaya Gopu. The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Bala ...
'' (1964) and ''Vennira Aadai'', ''Nenjirukkum Varai'' was shot in black-and-white to emphasise the central theme of poverty.


Soundtrack

Music was composed by M. S. Viswanathan. The song "Poo Mudippal" is set in
Simhendramadhyamam Simhendramadhyamam is a ragam in Carnatic music (musical scale of South Indian classical music). It is the 57th ''melakarta'' rāgam in the 72 ''melakarta'' rāgam system of Carnatic music. It is called Sumadyuti in Muthuswami Dikshitar school ...
raga. "Muthukkalo Kangal" is set in
Madhyamavati Madhyamavati (madhyamāvati) is a raga in Carnatic music (musical scale of South Indian classical music). It is an ''audava'' rāga (or ''owdava'' rāga, meaning pentatonic scale), as it does not have all the seven musical notes (''swaras''). ...
and Kanada ragas. The song "Nenjirukkum Engalukku" initially was supposed to be penned by
Kannadasan Muthiah Sathappan Chettiar better known as Kannadasan (; 24 June 1927 – 17 October 1981) was a poet, film song lyricist, producer, actor, script-writer, editor, philanthropist, and is heralded as one of the greatest and most important l ...
; however since he went to Karaikudi due to his cousin's demise, he urged Vaali to pen the song.


Release and reception

''Nenjirukkum Varai'' was released on 2 March 1967, and distributed by Chitralaya themselves. ''
Kalki Kalki (), also called Kalkin, is the prophesied tenth and final incarnation of the Hinduism, Hindu god Vishnu. According to Vaishnavism, Vaishnava cosmology, Kalki is destined to appear at the end of the Kali Yuga, the last of the four ages i ...
'' said only half the film was excellent, and it was worth watching for Ganesan's performance. According to Sridhar, the film did not do well at box-office as audience could not digest Ganesan's character dying onscreen.


References


Bibliography

* *


External links

* {{C. V. Sridhar 1960s Indian films 1960s Tamil-language films 1967 films Films about poverty in India Films directed by C. V. Sridhar Films scored by M. S. Viswanathan Films with screenplays by C. V. Sridhar Indian black-and-white films Tamil-language Indian films