This Famous quotes that calls for equality among all castes and also brings out the universal truth of the existence of only one GOD was the spear head concept of Narayana Guru in fighting the social injustice and inequality that existed in the Kerala society then. Guru always believed in the fact that people are born equal and why should they be discriminated in the name of caste, breed and creed. He believed that God is only one and all people should be allowed to worship GOD at places of worship. Till the early 20th century the so called ‘AVARNAS’ (The Lower Caste) were not allowed to go to temples. They were not even allowed to come near the ‘SAVRNAS’ (The Higher Caste). They were treated like animals and even deprived of education. Such was the inhuman way the Lower Castes were treated in KERALA.

Though  Guru  was born in an Ezhava family, he had the opportunity to get an education and became a Scholar in Vedic knowledge and Sanskrit. He got enlightened and his knowledge gave him the strength to fight for the cause of upliftment of his fellow beings. He fought for social justice through organized but non-violent means. He spread the message of equality of all human beings and spread his knowledge to his fellow beings and gave them wisdom and strength to fight for justice. He built  temples of Lord Shiva and Sharada (Goddess of learning), particularly for the lower castes,  to show  the people that Gods are not partial to any caste and all had the right to pray and worship them. His untiring efforts for  the cause of social justice won him admires in Kerala and even among  the Foreigners who came to India during that period. His works made ripples in Kerala society and  even many educated people from the higher castes joined him to fight for social justice for Ezhavas and all the lower caste. His efforts bore fruit and all were allowed to go and worship in temples through the ‘TEMPLE ENTRY PROCLAMATION (1936)’. His work for social justice and equality in  Kerala made him THE YUGAPURUSHAN (PERSON OF THIS AGE)

Once Vivekanda branded Kerala as ’ Lunatic Asylum’ seeing the rigid and in-human caste system prevailing in Kerala. The majority  population called as ‘Avarnas ’ were groaning under the terrible weight of social, economic, religious and political oppression imposed upon them by caste Hindus or “Savarnas”. Not only temples of God but temples of learning were also shut against them by twin weapons of untouchability and unapproachability. They had to toil hard for their caste-Hindu masters with hardly any reward. They had to suffer a multitude of disabilities that broke the very backbone of their life.
During this period, in August 1856 a child was born in a humble cottage in the pretty hamlet of Chempazhanthi near Trivandrum, no one knew it marked the dawn of the most remarkable epoch in the social evolution of Kerala. This child was to blossom forth as the great sage Sree Narayana, the most revolutionary social reformer Kerala has produced. His works for the social uplifts of the ‘Avarnas’ which had a huge impact on Kerala’s socio-economic in fact he was the sole reason for present social structure of the state.  At the age of five, he began his education in the neighboring school in the old “Gurukula” model. After his elementary education in this school, he became the disciple of a great Sanskrit scholar ‘Raman Pillai Asan’ of Puthuppally in Central Travancore. Under his master’s tutelage, he became well versed in Sanskrit classics. For some time he too functioned as an ‘Asan’, a teacher of infant pupils. Thus he came to be known as ‘Nanu Asan’.  Nanu, even from his boyhood had an ascetic bent of mind. When he was on the threshold of his youth, he had to undergo the ceremonial of a marriage due to parental pressure. But he never led a married life. Sree Narayana’s mind was always agitated by a spiritual urge that induced him along with a fellow-spiritualist renowned as ‘Chattampi Swami’, to become the disciple of a man named Ayyavu, the then Superintendent of the British Residency in Trivandrum from whom he learned Yoga. At the age of twenty-three he left his family, renounced the pleasures of his world and wandered about as an “avadhutha” or mendicant, keeping his body and soul together by the alms he received from all sorts of people. Soon human eyes detected the “Sanyasin” and devotees began to gather around him at Aruvippurm, the seat of his meditation. They participated in his prayers and spiritual learning. In due course the sage emerged from his retreat and like Buddha, came out to shed light onto a world of darkness. Thus began his crusade against social inequality and other iniquities.

Navya  Nair plays the role of Savithri Antharjanam in the movie Yugapurushan who goes against caste hegemony and marries a pulayan portrayed by Kalabhavan Mani . Kalabhavan Mani’s character is someone who is constantly harassed and looked down due to his caste status and his marriage to Savithri Antharjanam  allows access to Kalabhavan Mani to places which was deemed out of bounds for a pulayan. Sree Narayana Guru blesses the couple  and his greatness forms the crux of the subplot.

Who can forget the Asian Paints ad? A bunch of painters cheerfully painting a huge mansion, happily proclaiming that it’s time to bid adieu to mosses and fungi. Well the leader of the pack is now in a new avatar Mr.Thalaivasal Vijay portrays the life and times of Sree Narayana Guru in the movie Yugapurushan and well we got into a telephonic interview and he spoke at length about his character and the movie at large.

He said he was surprised when he got a call asking him to come down to Trivandrum to do  a makeup and photo shoot for the role of Sree Narayana Guru his self-doubts were removed once he got into the groove. He had no previous knowledge of Sree  Narayana Guru and he was surprised and felt blessed on being able to play the lead of someone like Sree Naryana Guru who is revered in Kerala and his moment of joy came when actor Salim Kumar hugged him on the first day of the shoot.

The elaborate make-up by Pattanam Rasheed came in for a lot of praise and he narrated an incident about how after putting on his make-up actor Mammooty praised Pattanam Rasheed on his make-up who is usually very thrifty when it comes to compliments. He became a vegetarian, read a lot of books on Gurudevan and said it was challenging to portray since there wasn’t any videos depicting Gurudevan except for a few documentary. The director R.Sukumaran was of the opinion that it would be better if he did not watch those.

He considers it to be a great blessing and believes he was guided through out and how the team at Yugapurshan made him happy and took extra efforts to make it a successful project. He was profuse in his thanks to AV.Anoop the producer who went out of the way to ensure he was comfortable even getting him a dentists chair while working on the make-up. He looks forward to the movie and believes that it is one of the most important projects of his career.

Art Direction Krishan Kutty of Yugapurushan talked about his experiences in working for Yugapurushan. To the first query about how he got involved in this movie he replied stating that he got involved during the initial stages of the film itself going to places like Aruvipuram  to take measurements and visiting other temples established by him.  We moved to the challenges faced by the art crew and his view was that being a movie highlighting the ideologies of Sree Narayana Guru it was inevitable that every situation reflected it.

The temples that he made including the Sivagiri could not be used today as it was a period film and shots were required that highlighted the events before and after the setting of these temples.  The temples of today are much different than what it was at the time of construction and we couldn’t use them since they did not reflect or was similar to the times at which they were constructed. This made the team visit those temples like Sivagiri , Aruvipuram and others and to get a fell and take images so that we could reconstruct them to the times of days of Sree Narayan Guru.

It was a challenging task we had to visit the place, take measurements , photographs understand the landscape, the history to recreate that ambience and finding suitable locations to erect sets as even more challenging , as places similar to those had to be found without electricity, and other modern amenities dotting the landscape to recreate the feel of those days. Regarding the duration of erecting the sets he said there wasn’t a definite time period but it did take considerable amount of time in finding the proper destination and we did find beautiful locations to erect those sets. The director Mr. R.Sukumaran did collect a lot of photographs of various location associated with Sree Narayan Guru and those helped immensely in creating the sets.  To a question regarding how important is this film in his career he said in his career spanning over 30 years starting with Priyadarshan and Sathyana Anthikad films, and working with them to create huge sets and the highlight was erecting a Banglore street in Chennai he said the works of Yugapurushan was one of the best and magnanimous and the biggest of his life and he was happy to do it.

He said that this movie is to be watched by all sections of the people. In this age where love and other emotions are fading , when  people lose track of each it would be wonderful if people can imbibe the teachings of Gurudevan. He considered as a blessing of God to able to work in this movie and his grace was present on all the occasions an throughout this whole project. As a final word as a message the team of Yugapurusan he said this movie is something to be watched teaching people to lead the path of happiness as envisioned by Sree Narayana Guru .

Folks guess what?? 20 bloggers from the blogosphere who exhibit their skills at blogging on the topic Yugapurushan the movie or about Sree Narayana Guru gets a chance to meet the cast and crew of Yugapurushan and appear for a special preview of the movie. So folks get down to your keyboard and whip up the magic in you for that special post and get to see the movie along with team Yugapurushan.

What to do ?

1. Write that special post about Yuguaprushan and Sree Narayana Guru on your blog teling why the movie is needed and Guru’s relavance in this modern era.

2. Give a back link to the official website yugapurushan.moviebuzz.org

3. Post what you have written as a comment on yugapurushan.moviebuzz.org

Get going…..

On a bright Sunday morning I stepped into the house of director R.Sukumaran who has left indelible footprints in the sands of the Malayalam movie industry in the form of Rajashilpi and Padamudra. He ushered me into his spartanly furnished house . A painted portrait of Sree Narayana Guru hung over the wall of which he later told me was painted by him. A painter at heart his painting had an aura which was hard to ignore. The simplicity in him humbles you and he has no qualms in opening up to a novice like me sharing all that he had about the movie .

He stressed one important thing that the purpose of the movie is to get the message of Sree Narayana Guru to the people by not just showing him or his life but his sufferings the pain that he had to undergo that is the essence of the movie, the totality that sums up the relevance of the movie in this era of hatred, violence, terrorism  and other social malice and movies being the popular medium he couldn’t  have chosen anything better.  The story of the painter turned director is enchanting but more enchanting was the making of Yugapurushan. Fifteen years in the making and into the sixteenth year he has not lost an iota of interest in the movie.

He brought some yet to be released posters with him to show me .  Like a child holding his favourite toys, he beamed and showed them to me one by one asking what he missed in each poster. I could only sit and admire his devotion to the medium. I kept my pen and notepad down I just wanted to listen to what he had to say and not miss anything of it. I made sure I was empty and not full for a cup that’s full can’t receive more.  Sree Narayan Guru was a childhood passion something that he held close to his heart , collecting stamps , following anything remotely close to Gurudevan . He had this feeling that h he should make a movie on Gurudevan even when he was nowhere near to the film industry. The passion lingered and today we are at the threshold of seeing something magnanimous, an epic mind you it isn’t a documentary as he stresses but a  regular movie a story that is told in  a regular movie format with all the frills and thrills something that he believes will take the movie more closer to the audience and not just the critiques  .

The story board contains over 2000 hand drawn images and the script was all done and set and the year 2009 saw the completion of the project. We dived into the cast and the process for picking up the actors to suit the characters was a long and tedious process. Similarities to real life characters were an important criteria in selecting the artists to portray the characters. Dr.Mammootty was initially chosen to portray the character of Sree Narayan Guru after extensive sketching  and scrutiny . He accepted the role but after going a bit deep into the character he was of the opinion that he wouldn’t be able to do much justice to the character and asked director R.Sukumaran to find a suitable replacement and he would be happy to portray another character in the movie. So after extensive search involving scrutinizing of more than 5000 profiles editor Sai Suresh stumbled upon Thalaivasal Vijay and seeing close resemblance to Sree Narayana Guru referred it to the director. He said that Thalaivasal Vijay was cast after extensive trials involving costume at Chennai, Trivadnrum and Cochin and well to get into the skin of the character he studied about Gurudevan, became a vegetarian  till the project was complete ,shed weight and well the director is happy for his excellent portrayal. Sacrifices the epitome of perfection. Mammootty  essays the role of K.C.Kuttan, an ardent follower of Gurudevan who is almost a rebel. He stressed on the need that what Gurudevan needs is not followers but people who can put into practise what he preaches.

The movie has two subplots which highlights the relevance of Guru’s teachings. One involves Jagathy Sreekumar portraying  the role of a drunkard who bullies his wife essayed by Kalpana. Into their lives comes Gurudevan leading Jagathy Sreekumar into the path of righteousness. Another sub plot revolves around the evils of casteism and the travails of a couple. Kalabhavan Mani essays the role of a pulayan who is ridiculed in the society due to his caste status. Into his life enters Navya Nair an educated Brahmin girl and they marry much to the fury caste Hindus and Kalabhavan Mani gains entry to the very place which he has been barred.

A wholesome movie that’s how he describes it complete with action, songs, plots and sub plots running for duration of two and half hours. The movie is dotted with four songs written by Kaithapuram Damodaran Namboothiri set to tune by Mohan Sitara and also includes a poem written by Kumaraansan and verses by Sree Narayana Guru all set to tune by Mohan Sitara. It was time to bid adieu and I bid him farewell with a Namaste I could see that the Sree Narayana Guru mounted on the wall was smiling. I left with a feeling that well we have something at last a capsule of the life and times and teaching of the revered Guru to be swallowed and this one will be a sweet pill for sure. It was dusk almost, the birds singing the sun into a lullaby as it set into Arabian Sea and coming January another sun is bound to rise much to the tunes of R.Sukumaran.

The characters portrayed by others , well are for another post.  Right now I want to sink in and absorb all that transpired between us.

The Varkala pilgrimage is an important event for the followers of Sree Narayana Guru. The pilgrimage aims to achieve the following goals

1. Education

2. Cleanliness

3. Devotion to God

4. Organisation

5. Agriculture

6. Trade

7. Handicrafts

8. Technical training

The movie Yugapurushan is also bound to be a pilgrimage for the followers of Malayalam cinema. With a huge star cast, and a preparation spanning decades this movie is one of its kind. Yes it is period a biopic and biopic have been made before no doubt what makes this one different is that it is about the story of a man who is often misunderstood. He is a sage who wished well being of all the people not just a particular community. He said Ezhava is not a caste or a religion and anyone is welcome to be a part of it. The whole equation has now changed and the movement has become a caste symbol the movie sheds light on the life and times of this Yugapurushan and what he wished for the people. If the movie can dispel the wrong giving of some section of the society then the movie has served its purpose.