TAMILS are largely regarded as people who border on the clannish. Even so, their state’s cinema has for long accepted heroines who can speak barely a word of the language. A wide-angle view of the pan-Deccan movie scene brings into focus another curious angle: a special alchemy that has worked between the Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam film industry when it comes to heroines. For decades now, they have been largely tolerant with heroines, thereby enabling the star actresses to juggle three territories. It has earned them byproducts too: a larger audience and increased market value.
Sample these. Nayanthara, the highest paid actress in Kollywood today, has not uttered a word in Tamil for any of her films. Simran, one of the most popular heroines of her times, spent over a decade in the industry, not having spoken one word for herself in her 40-odd films. Keerthi Chawla played the lead role in 'Uliyin Osai', the adaptation of politician and Tamil zealot Karunanidhi’s work Sarapallam Chamundi. But the actress, whose knowledge of the language is near zero, could not dub for herself. Be it Tamannaah, Namitha, Shriya or Anushka, the case remains the same — their Tamil publicly hasn’t progressed beyond a ‘Vanakkam Chennai’.
Recently, actress Pooja made it to the news for trying hard to get the language right. This was to dub for herself in 'Naan Kadavul', in which she plays a blind beggar. Half-Sinhalese, half-Kannadiga, she has been doing Tamil films since 2003, but this was the first time Pooja attempted dubbing for herself. News reports claim it was largely because the film’s crew found her performance award-worthy and did not want her to lose out on it because she had not dubbed for herself. Equally interestingly, Genelia, a Manglorean, managed to escape dubbing for herself in her five-year stint in Tamil and Telugu films, while she rose to national fame in 'Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na', in which she spoke for herself.
One look at the Telugu film industry and even Malayalam (to a lesser extent) will convince you that it’s only in Bollywood that the cosmopolitanism could be more inspiring. Such is the reign of the ‘outsider’ heroines in both film industries that the producers and filmmakers continue to cast them — even though the voices that dub for them are always identical.
Coming back to Kollywood, why is it, after all, witnessing a huge presence of non-Tamil origin heroines? One reason is modelling, which is the traditional entry route for heroines to the world of celluloid.
Industry pundits claim there’s a low presence of Tamil models. Kerala and Mumbai still reign supreme in producing heroines and it’s from these places, respectively, that Nayanthara and Tamannah, two of the industry’s leading heroines today, hail.
To be fair, heroines hailing from a non-Tamil background are not new to Kollywood. Its history of 75 years is replete with instances of young heroines from elsewhere making it big. Padmini was Malayali, Saroja Devi and Jayanthi were Kannadigas. And, Savithri, the most celebrated actress of her time, hailed from Andhra Pradesh.
However, these actresses dubbed for themselves on most accounts; only their accents betray their ethnicity. In fact, Savithri’s delivery of dialogues often led her to be paired with and compared to Sivaji Ganesan. As for Saroja Devi, her Kannada-flavoured Tamil earned the actress the title kannadathu ainkili in Tamil cinema.
Cut to our times. Months ago, actress Bhavana picked the mike to dub for herself in heavy Madurai slang. Ah! In recent times you heard only Asin speak in her voice in a Tamil movie. That way, Tamil cine-goers have definitely missed Asin.
It’s not as if Tamil films never had heroines hailing from the state. Still, the element of piquancy is intact. Priyamani went on to win the national award for best actress, even as she is a Palakkad Tamilian by origin. Trisha is a ‘pure’ Tamil by origin, but then she hasn’t dubbed for a single movie. Of late, it took a Malayali actress like Parvathi to dub for herself — that too in her first Tamil film Poo that centred on her character, Maari. Her state-mates who have won applause for dubbing in Tamil include Meera Jasmine and Navya Nair all in their twenties.
All this when Kollywood is the country’s second biggest film industry after Bollywood. But then, many films are selling on the oomph of its heroines. So, it doesn’t seem to matter if the heroines don’t speak for themselves. Surely in the future, several star Tamil actresses will speak in borrowed voices of dubbing artiste Savitha Reddy, TV regular Deepa Venkat, singer Chinmayi, yesteryear actresses Rohini and Revathy, and so on.
sharadha@epmltd.com