CHENNAI : What do you think is on the mind of a man who just turned 101 If you were to ask Anthony Mithradas, he’d answer confidently in his calm, rasping voice, “Kaththi”. Mithradas, whose birthday was celebrated as an occasion by the Tamil Film Directors Union on Monday, is the man who made MKT Bhagavathar’s last movie Sivakami and also directed Malayalam Prem Nazir’s biggest hits Avakashi, all in the 1950s. With a wit as sharp as the movie he was thirsting to watch, Mithradas refused to be carried on stage and vehemently stood his ground, before walking up slowly on to the stage at RKV Studios.
There’s very little else that you can expect from a man who has worked quietly in the film industry for a longer time than India has been Independent. “He’s so updated about films that even now he reads the reviews about latest films and decides whether or not he’d want to watch them. His daughter told me that he has read so much about Kaththi’s social message that he is extremely interested in watching the film now,” said director Vikraman, president of the Tamil Nadu Thirai Iyakunarkal Sangam (TANTIS). It was a show of strength from Mithradas’ family as he had come with his 103-year-old wife Elizabeth, daughter and her family. His daughter spoke about how he had switched to production after seven films. “He gave up directing very early and began running a studio near Vadapalani. Then when the technology changes starting increasing, he started retiring slowly,” she said.
After cutting a cake and greetings from directors like Bharathiraaja, C V Rajendran and many others, he said, haltingly, “My father was a part of World War I and I was a part of World War II and when Gandhi called us to work, I went to lots of places and learnt so many things. I have had a lot of experiences in my life, but very little to show for it,” he said and added, “After so many years, my greatest blessing is to have received the wishes of such stellar stars. No one has honoured me to this extent in my life.”
This was followed by a lot of self deprecatory humour from directors about how it was an “astonishing feat” to have been in cinema and have lived for this many years. Radha Ravi, whose father M R Radha was a contemporary of Mithradas, said, “I am surprised that a director has lived this long, because that means the industry was probably good at that time. It’s not even in the scope of my imagination. If he knows what the cinema industry is like now, he won’t survive for too much longer.”