Let me begin by talking about a particular scene in this film, which I feel Sarvam Thaala Mayam is, or could have been, all about. After a particular problem arises in the life of Peter (GV Prakash), his father Johnson (Kumaravel) takes him to their ancestral village. Johnson is returning to his hometown after ages, and visits a tea shop where he is served tea in a plastic glass.
The tea shop owner, who is now pouring the beverage into a tea glass, casually asks Johnson if Peter is his acquaintance from the city. And when Johnson introduces his son to the shop owner, the tea is swiftly transferred to a plastic glass and is handed over to Peter with a word of advice about learning the ways of the village since he is here. Peter consumes the tea without a word and while walking away from the shop asks his father, “Naa enna chinna kozhandhaiya, enakku edhukku plastic glass la tea kudukraanga?” Johnson replies, “Appo naa enna chinna kuzhandaiya?” and says something to the effect that it is the norm of the village, and he is reminding us of our place. Peter is livid. He wants to retaliate immediately. Johnson asks him to move on because they are here for a reason, and there are more important things to fight for.
There is a reason why I believe this scene encapsulates the entire movie. I’ll get back to the reasoning soon, but first, let’s talk about how the other aspects of the film.
Peter is the typical GV Prakash hero. Brash, young, stalker, relentless, a Vijay fan, and as an added character pointer, has an overarching sense of hero worshipping. He is someone who can’t really take ‘No’ for an answer, and this obviously leads him to the heroine Sarah (Aparna Balamurali). While the entire stretch between Peter and Sarah might be underwhelming considering the type of romance usually found in Rajiv Menon’s films, I found it to be symbolic of the evolution of the idea of love in the filmmaker’s head.
Peter, the son of a Mridangam maker, is acquainted with drums, and has an inborn talent where he can listen to the beats and reproduce it in an instant. “Naa vaasikradhu makkal rasikradhu enakku pudichurku” says Peter. He doesn’t want to be the greatest drums player ever, he only wants to see people enjoy his music. But, there is a tectonic shift in this attitude when he meets Padma Vibhushan Vembu Iyer (A brilliant Nedumudi Venu). He suddenly wants to be the No 1 Mridangam musician.
After witnessing firsthand Vembu’s magic on the mridangam, Peter replaces Vijay with Vembu and decides to hero-worship the talented mridangist. Peter’s quest to learn the very instrument his family has been making for generations is Sarvam Thaala Mayam in a nutshell. One among the many hurdles in his path towards knowledge is Mani (Vineeth), a longtime disciple of Vembu. Mani doesn’t believe Peter deserves a place in the hallowed list of Vembu’s disciples. Dislike from Mani comes with a side order of casteism, and misplaced sense of social justice. Mani believes everything in this world has a place, and Peter has none in the world of Carnatic music. Vembu, who does take Peter to be his disciple, is not exactly progressive either. He is surely a product of his times, and absolutely reeks of casteism, but is portrayed with a halo, unlike Mani, who is your clear cut villain. And that’s the thing with Rajiv Menon’s writing in this film. He hints at Vembu being a casteist, misogynistic, egoistic musician, but has a more casteist, more egoistic musician in the form of Vineeth’s Mani, that allows Vembu to just slip past the casteism curtain. Peter understands Mani’s casteism, but he doesn’t recognise Vembu’s. Not just Peter, but his father Johnson too doesn’t see Vembu as a casteist, because the “mahaan” musician has been put on a pedestal. Once we place someone on the pedestal, we see no wrong in them, and somehow make excuses for their injustices.
This character and this film have a similar ancestor — The 1988 K Balachander film Unnal Mudiyum Thambi, starring Kamal Haasan and Gemini Ganesan.
As a character I prefer Gemini Ganesan’s Bilahari Marthandam Pillai in Unnal Mudiyum Thambi to Vembu Iyer in Sarvam Thaala Mayam, only because, in some way, Gemini does come to terms with his casteism, and accepts that are some fundamental flaws, unlike Vembu.
Famed musician and Carnatic music’s in-house rabble rouser TM Krishna often says that Carnatic music needs both an introspection and revolution from within to remain relevant. And for that, Sarvam Thaala Mayam uses the boring trope of reality shows to usher in modernity in Carnatic music. It is an attempt to take the music to the masses, or we are lead to believe.
However, I got reminded of this particular episode on a once-popular reality show. There was this amazingly talented contestant, who had a very folksy voice. Someone with the voice range of a Velmurugan or an Anthony Dasan. One of the rounds in the show was a Carnatic music one, and the channel had roped in some of the biggest names as accompanying musicians. This contestant failed miserably to sit around them and sing one of the “easiest” kirtans. The judges admonished him for not practising enough. They scolded him for wasting the time of all these musicians. As a less informed, less aware person in the mid 2000s, I found the reprimanding to be warranted. But, if I look back at it now, wasn’t it injustice?
Coming back to Sarvam Thaala Mayam, the writing betrays a certain sense of fear to go beyond just scratching the surface. The Sabha culture is taunted, but the film doesn’t bell the cat. The brahminical hegemony on Carnatic Music is displayed, but the film has benevolent casteism going unchecked. Even when Vembu finally relents to accepting modernity, he does it to help further the art, and definitely, not the artists.
Let me get back to the scene I began this review with — The tea glass conundrum. It was recently used in Mari Selvaraj’s Pariyerum Perumal, but the discussions that those two tea glasses in that movie gave birth to will not be replicated in this Rajiv Menon film. Because Rajiv doesn’t paint Peter’s life with the same brush as he paints Johnson’s life. Johnson resigns to his fate because he finds his job of making the Mridangam as his high point. There used to be a time when he wanted to be a musician himself, but poverty had other plans. But Peter wants to do more. Not only because he believes he can, but also because he wants to. Peter has more agency than Johnson ever had. But, this is alluded to the space given to him by Vembu and his music, and not Peter’s parents Johnson and Theresa (an impressive Aadhira). That’s why the purest moments in the film is the scenes after the tea shop incident. Johnson and his friends in the village sing, dance, and get drunk to their own brand of music, using their own instruments, and talk about things known to them, and praying to gods who have accepted them. They don’t need the world of Carnatic music to accept them. This is their world. Just acknowledge that this exists, and is in no way inferior to the music of the Sabhas.
Towards the end of the film, Vembu says that Carnatic music isn’t a well to be isolated and disconnected. It is a flowing river, that should change shape with respect to the geography of the location. While this analogy might actually seem uplifting and hints at inclusivity, I found it to be disconcerting.
Carnatic music need not be a flowing river. It can be a well, but a well that allows everyone who wants water, to use it. There is no point, even being an ocean if the usage is restricted to certain kinds of people.
Sarvam Thaala Mayam is a good-looking, pleasant-sounding(Excellent album, and even better BGM by AR Rahman), feel-good version of the typical underdog story. Nothing less, and unfortunately for all its potential, nothing more.
Avinash Ramachandran 