He is no Alexander the Great, but the mighty Greek was
not the only cool dude to come, see and conquer. Meet Santhosh Pandit, the
protagonist of a spectacularly absurd YouTube revolution.
***
Sometimes it is
difficult to tell who is really mad: one at whom the stones are pelted or the
one who pelts the stones.
In
a popular talk show on Manorama News, a prominent Malayalam TV channel, the
talking point is Santhosh Pandit, himself a member of the panel. Into the
discussion, another panelist, a moderately successful actor who has found a place
in the panel only because he had a sidekick’s role to play in the latest
hit , turns to a psychologist who is also in the panel, points a finger at
Santhosh Pandit, and asks: “Sir, is this guy mad?”
Incidentally, it happens
to be a question that lakhs of Malayalees have been asking too: Is Santhosh Pandit
really mad? It also happens to be a question that serves as an answer to another
question: Are lakhs of Malayalees really mad?
Here
is the story. One day a music video of Santhosh Pandit titled Rathri Sivarathri—in
addition to acting in the video, Santhosh wrote, composed, sang and also edited
the video—is posted in YouTube. If you discount the quirky body language of the
hero, there is nothing in the video that is not familiar to Malayalees: a hero
performing what is supposed to be understood as an act of romancing a
girl—fooling around in a paddy field with what looks like an underaged girl in
the company of dancers who are kids, lewd expressions that every lover would be
warned against trying, dance steps that could well be interpreted as some sort
of a spoof of the dance scenes in Malayalam movies, and every other typical
ingredient you would associate with the usual cine masala. And if you discount
the slightly quirky rendering, there is nothing in the song too that is not
familiar to Malayalees: senseless and catchy lyrics, and an unremarkable and
easy-to-sing tune.
But
you don’t discount quirkiness when you are talking Malayalam.
In
what was to become a prelude to the Kolaveri-YouTube revolution, Rathri Sivarathriwent
viral online. There’s a vital difference, though: If the Kolaveri phenomenon
established Dhanush as a cult hero, the Rathri Sivarathri phenomenon had
Santhosh Pandit as a cult villain, albeit a comic one. Then again, who knows
who a hero is and who a villain is and who knows what comedy is and what comedy’s
antithesis is in a YouTube revolution? In the blink of an eye, the link was
visited by thousands, many of whom also posted what can be mildly termed as
vulgar comments, but what would perhaps best be described by whatever they
would have filled these (expletives deleted) with. If it was an attempt at character
assassination, the method adopted was the lewdest possible even by the infamous
standards of intolerance Malayalees have set for anything or anybody who
violates their conventional codes for aesthetics and morality. In fact,
Santhosh Pandit was the latest in a recent list of such victims of vilification
that includes S Sreesanth and Sashi Tharoor.
But unlike World Cup
winner Sreesanth and Union Minister Tharoor, Pandit took the mob head on and
beat them at their own game.
Call it a fluke or a
blind stroke of marketing genius; he started posting more music videos which
elicited similar comments and about as many hits. He even began to find a place
in the top ten Google trends. Soon the cult of Pandit was established and would
find its moment of crowning glory when the film he produced, Krishnanum Radhayum—in
which he starred as a hero and handled all technical aspects except
camera—became an instant hit that transformed cinema theatres into profane
carnivals of Malayalee male angst. More
episodes of the absurd featuring Pandit as the protagonist would follow that
success. Suddenly he was everywhere and on every lip. All prime time talk shows
on television channels would have him as their subject. Employing the same
tactic that helped him garner the online audience, Pandit would play Pandit on
television screen—irritating, entertaining, and ultimately milking the public
with his eccentric body language and peculiar style of dialogue delivery. Magazines
and websites would feature essays by critics that analysed Pandit as a
socio-political phenomenon—a victim of the hegemonic Brahminical sensibility
and a product of the sado-masochist tendencies that rule the Malayalee
psyche—while social networking sites like Facebook would be filled with heated discussions
about him. Corresponding to discussions that debated whether Santhosh Pandit is
mad or not, there would also be discussions that focused on the aesthetics of
cinema, debating passionately whether Krishnanum Radhayum is
a movie of abominable quality or a brilliant spoof that lays bare the
mediocrity of Malayalam cinema.
The game would have a
fittingly absurd climax when the possibility of a catastrophe displaced Pandit
from public imagination and media space. As minor earthquakes revealed
cracks in the Mullaperiyar dam and the possibility of a megadeath tragedy was
debated, the public and the media had found a new event to indulge in. But in a
month’s time, that event too fizzled out and it was business as usual.
***
Santhosh Pandit may
well be the first movie star in the world to have risen to fame almost entirely
using internet and television. He is also a wonderful lesson in the art of
brand building. Having understood that the tea/toddy-shop culture (a culture of
discussing everything under the sun with an intense yet detached fervour at a
tea or toddy shop) rules the roost in Malayalam online space, Pandit decided
that the best way to ensure his success was to continuously remain a talking
point, and then went on to play his cards smartly. If not being weighed down by
a torrent of obscenities can be equated to courage, he’s shown plenty of that—to
the extent of openly inviting it. “I really don’t care when the Malayalee
public abuses me. People don’t know that whenever they abuse me, I’m
earning some money too. People are just jealous of my success and there is
nothing that I can do about it.” And to the accusation that he is mad, he
retorts: “If a madman like me can do so much, imagine what all wonderfully
normal people can do.”
Santhosh Pandit was
born to Appunni Pandit (a project assistant engineer in the Irrigation
department) and Sarojini Amma in a village called Peruvannamoozhi, Kozhikode
district. He claims that his ancestors migrated from Uttar Pradesh and hence
the name Pandit. Having travelled all over India with his father, Santhosh grew
attracted to Gandhian philosophy, and says his life is a pursuit of truth in
the Gandhian model. After graduating in English from Kozhikode Meenchantha Arts
and Science college, he went on to notch up many diplomas, including one in
engineering, from Calicut University. His marriage ended in a divorce with
his wife being granted custody of their son who incidentally sang one of
the songs—“Anganavadiyile teachere”—in Krishnanum Radhayum.
Before
deciding to become a filmmaker, Santhosh was an overseer in the Irrigation
Department. When he realised that cinema was his true calling, he decided to
take a five-year sabbatical. Upon hearing from a friend about the possibility
of making extremely low cost films using a Canon 7-D camera, he decided to
explore the possibility. (The emergence of the 7D camera is a major
sub-plot of the Santhosh Pandit story .It heralded a new chapter in filmmaking
in Kerala with a large number of young people now approaching cinema as a
not-so-difficult medium to access. Consequentially, the movie industry was
democratized; artists started experimenting with more independent projects that
were not backed by bigwig producers or production houses.) To find money to
invest in his project, Pandit sold his house and property. He then learnt
various technical aspects about filmmaking online, and after feeling
sufficiently emboldened, started shooting the film with his friend Jayaprakash
handling the camera and he taking charge of everything else. They shot the
songs first which were then posted on YouTube. The rest is Santhosh Pandit.
The bricklayers who
played a major part in building the Pandit cult came from the IT sector—people
who operate computers as part of their job. That is an interesting phenomenon
in itself which many IT professionals ascribe to the pent-up frustration of
their job. Anoop Jacob, a 27-year-old IT engineer who works in Techno Park, and
a “diehard Pandit fan” says: “We are under a lot of stress most of the time
with the pressure of deadlines and strain of extremely difficult working
relationships. So when someone like Santhosh Pandit came along, we found his
comic demeanour a great stress buster. Even the slander and abuse that are
posted in the link are things to joke around for us during a break, and serve
as the material for funny SMS-es to circulate around.” Sriram Rajan, another IT
professional, has a different point of view. He thinks Santhosh deserves the
abuse he gets. “The kind of endeavours that Santhosh Pandit comes up with
should never be encouraged in art. We have a tradition that should not be
treated like shit.” But does that justify the abuse heaped on him? “Yes”, says
Sriram. “Santhosh is abusing us. So why should we not abuse him?” But then why
did it not stop him from making more videos and eventually a film? “That is
because he is not normal. The guy is mad”, Sriram says with a frown.
Outside the IT
population, Pandit has a huge fan base among the ordinary working class who
find in him someone like them who has made it big despite odds stacked against
him. To them, his is a story of an ordinary man who took on a mighty
establishment and emerged as a triumphant hero. The fact that he made a
film without being part of any of the unions in the film industry adds more
substance to this myth of a one man army who toppled a kingdom. (In Kerala,
actors, producers, distributors, theatre owners, directors and technicians all
have unions of their own which are almost always in the news for being at
loggerheads with each other.) Ajay Thamban, a lorry driver, says: “Everyone is
jealous of his success. After all, what did the poor man do? He did not kill or
rape anyone. All he did was to make a film. Why should he be crucified for
that?” Leelamma Mathew, a middle aged housewife, too, has a similar view:
“Whatever the quality of the film, no one has the right to abuse him. His film
has been given a U certificate. If the censor board did not find anything
vulgar in the film, why should these people find his movie obscene? And in any
case, it is not as if Malayalees are making great films every day.”
In fact, the argument
that Santhosh’s victory is actually the Malayalee public’s message to the
mainstream Malayalam movie industry to arrest its alarmingly declining quality
is one that has gained widespread currency. C S Venkiteshwaran, an award
winning movie critic, wrote in an essay on Pandit that his movie is far better
than most superstar movies churned out in Malayalam. As most Malayalam films
fare miserably at the box office, the movie-going public and theatre owners
have started putting their faith in Hindi and Tamil films. Krishnanum Radhayum was
the only Malayalam film to have a Diwali release last year in theatres in
Kerala, and ironically, the other films to be released along with it—Ra.One and 7Aum Arivu (Tamil
movie starring Surya) were superhero movies. V M Devadas, a noted Malayalam
writer and an IT professional, says: “It was as if the audience were telling
the establishment: ‘either you stop giving us what you have been giving us for
some time, or we move away to people like Santhosh Pandit.’”
According to B Aboobackar,
a prominent film critic, if Santhosh Pandit is vilified for the “atrocious
way” in which he made and acted in his movie, then Mohanlal and Mammooty, the
reigning superstars should also be meted out the same treatment. “For years
now, they have been coming out with crap and yet their superstardom is never
questioned. What the Santhosh Pandit saga reveals to us is the hypocrisy with
which Malayalees operate. The real reason for heaping abuse on him is the fact
that he has managed to question their mediocre cinematic sensibilities which in
turn provoked their inflated superiority complex.” Aboobackar himself has been
vilified by the online public for never failing to point out in his reviews
that whichever movie he’s analysing is anti-minority, anti-women and
politically incorrect. Some even voiced the suspicion that Aboobackar was just
a pseudonym of Santhosh Pandit.
Pandit too claims
that his victory is a reflection of the deteriorating quality of Malayalam
cinema. “The audience were waiting for something different. They were tired of
seeing the stars dish out rotten stuff time and again. When I gave them a
different product, they accepted me wholeheartedly. That is what my victory
shows. It is in reality a victory of creativity. If you give the audience
something creative, they will accept it. That is why they have made me a
superstar.” Pandit also refutes the notion that Krishnanum Radhayum is
a spoof and claims that it’s a work of such originality that a theme of similar
nature has never been made anywhere. He plays the character of John in the
movie, a budding musician who is in love with a Hindu girl named Radha. After
they marry, they find it difficult to get a house to stay as they are from
different religions. To overcome the crisis, John changes his name to Krishnan and
manages to rent a house. The twist is when Radha dies as everyone now comes to
know that Krishnan is actually John. He finds it difficult to hold her
cremation. After prevailing over many challenges, he finally manages to cremate
her. In the climax he comes back and murders those who had made his life hell
and goes to jail. “Tell me, where has a film like this been made?” asks
Santhosh. “My cinema has a message. It is a movie about divine love, the
importance of preserving secular values, and above all about the helplessness
of a dead body.”
***
If
till the release of the film, the legend of Santhosh Pandit was a product of
the online community, television made him a household figure after the movie,
with news channels competing to spend hours on him. The pattern adopted
by television anchors to confront him was similar to the one witnessed in
online platforms. He was subjected to vicious abuse, which he dealt with in his
inimitable fashion. Appearing on the shows clad in suit and coat, using the
same body language he employed in his movie—consistently restless and
fidgety, and frequently jumping up and down from his chair, and delivering the
kind of punch lines he made immensely popular in Krishnanum Radhayum,
he managed to steal the show every single time. When M V Nikesh Kumar,
editor-in- chief of the Reporter channel, launched a scathing attack on Pandit
for making a mockery of the history of Malayalam cinema, he retorted with a
smile: “Sir, have you seen the movie?” After Nikesh answered in the negative,
Pandit silenced him asking how an eminent anchor like Nikesh could criticise a
movie without watching it and based only on hearsay. In another show, when John
Brittas of Asianet News, a legend of Malayalam news television asked if it was
because Pandit now has the airs of a “superstar” that he was now wearing
coat when appearing on television shows, Pandit replied: “Sir, is it because
you or other news anchors are superstars that they wear coats when presenting
news?”
In a bizarre turn of
events, YouTube videos of these television shows in which Pandit trumps
prominent anchors too were celebrated by the online public with many now
starting to sympathise with him. The way he was treated in these shows met with
widespread criticism, with cultural critics accusing television anchors of
irresponsible media behaviour. Aboobackar says: “The attitude of television
anchors like John Brittas, Shani and Nikesh stinks of deeply ingrained
Brahminical tendencies.They just cannot to lerate the success of someone who
does not conform to Brahminical notions of aesthetics. If you are dark or have
a body language that is unusual, then the so-called critics think they have the
licence to mount on you whatever form of attack they want to.” There is also a
counter argument according to which television and Santhosh were playing a
win-win game. Devadas says: “Television could milk Santhosh only if the shows
had Santhosh Pandit playing Santhosh Pandit. And for them to make Santhosh
Pandit play Santhosh Pandit, they have no other option but to rile him. As for
Santhosh Pandit, he was never in any doubt about what makes him click.”
Santhosh Pandit is
now ready with his second movie titled Jithubhai Enna Chocolatebhai whose
songs have already been posted on YouTube. As in Krishnanum Radhayum,
Santhosh is involved with every aspect of the movie except camera. If the songs
can be considered trailers there is nothing very different to expect from the
movie. And while the response has been less manic this time, the general tone
of the comments is still one of hatred.
If
Santhosh Pandit won’t change, Malayalees too won’t change.
***
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