Thadakam (The Lake, 1982)

Before Pavanai, there was Jabbar Khan. Captain Raju makes his appreance as Jabbar Khan in an almost comical but imposing getup of a Pathan in Thadakam (The Lake), an I.V.Sasi film set in Kashmir. I.V.Sasi is true to the locations and the culture, unlike the Punjabi Houses produced twenty years hence. Thadakam is extensively shot in Kashmir, some local characters are portrayed by local actors speaking Hindi (not Kashmiri though) and there are even Hindi songs sung by Kashmirir characters in this Malayalam movie. 

Thadakam (1982) must have been I.V.Sasi's second outing set in Kashmir, after Thusharam (1981) having caught the Kashmir bug. Script and screen play are never the strong suite of I.V. Sasi movies, there are also unnecessarily sleazy situations as was required for early eighties Indian movies. Seema, Mammootty, Sumalatha, Ratheesh, Captain Raju and Balan K.Nair play some of the main characters in a movie that deals with a reincarnation episode in the life of its leading lady. There must have been a spate of reincarnation movies after the blockbuster success of Karz (1980), this must have been one of Malayalam's contributions during that cinematic season of rebirths. 

It is a low effort movie from the director after Thusharam, with a lot of B-grade sound and camera effects. It almost makes me wonder whether they did back to back shoots of both the movies at around the same time with the effort and the money put more towards the earlier movie.

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John Jaffer Janardhanan

After countless searches to fill “My List” with movies and shows to watch on Netflix, I usually reach an impasse. There is too much stuff on Netflix that I like and I cannot decide which one to watch. The only way out of this deadlock is to switch to YouTube. On YouTube I usually end up watching old Malayalam movies, usually the first one YouTube suggests.

That’s how I landed upon John Jaffer Janardhanan (1982) This masala potboiler directed by I.V.Sasi is a remake of the Bollywood film Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) Many movies from the Indian subcontinent from 1960s to 80s had successfully exploited the formula of lost and found families and siblings. Some of the most famous ones are - Waqt (1962 Bollywood) and it remakes (Kolilakkam – 1981 Malayalam being one of them), Talash (1976 Pakistan), Amar Akbar Anthony (1977 Bollywood) and its regional remakes,  Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973) and it regional remakes (Himam 1983 Malayalam was one of the remakes.)

The formula goes like this. A family of 2-3 kids (usually male siblings) and their parents are scattered to the four winds by the cruel hand of fate. This literally happens in John Jaffer Janardhanan where the mother of the family gathers her 3 kids in a forlorn spot and then goes out seeking food and help. On the way back she gets blown away by a localized cyclone or something similar(a very local weather phenomenon for sure.) She is thrown off course and struck down by the force of the gale and a broken tree branch while her 3 kids wander off crying and are picked up and raised by kind strangers.

At this point the formula calls for a song. All the three kids are shown growing up in different households subscribing to different religions and social classes. During this song the mother might become blind or handicapped, practically rendering her useless for anything other than pining her days away thinking about her lost kids. The father is shown becoming a Don or a mafia boss or a rich entrepreneur. In the five minutes, that takes for the song to end everyone will be 20 years older.  Now we are ten minutes into a 180 minute movie.

The next  two and half hours we see the three brothers engage in their professions, court girl friends from their respective religion and sing some more songs. One is usually a crime fighter or a cop, another one is a criminal but with a good heart and the youngest is usually a singer / dancer. In John Jaffer Janardhanan, Mammotty is the oldest brother – Janardhanan, the police officer. Ratheesh is the middle one raised as John at a church orphanage and is a small-time crook. The youngest Jaffer (Ravindran) has been raised as a Muslim and is a qawwali singer. All three have a rare blood group and are always up for voluntary blood donations.

Swapna, Madhavi and Sumalata play their girlfriends. All they must do is act pretty and coy and have the right connections to the right characters. K.R.Vijaya is the mother. She was the default mother in these types of movies, who was adept at losing her kids whenever the winds picked up. Balan K. Nair plays the father who becomes a mafia don. 

Finally there is the bathrobe clad, pipe smoking villain. In Malayalam this role used to fall on the capable shoulders of Jose Prakash or K.P.Ummer. In JJJ, it is Jose Prakash who draws the short straw. He is also the thread that brings all the separated siblings and their father together. Their common quest to bring down this villain also serves as the cinematic tool to unite them.

As film progresses, the brothers are united one by one through even more ludicrous acts of fate than the one that separated them in the first place. The same happens with their father and mother. In the last 10 minutes, there is a long fight sequence followed by a teary-eyed but joyous family reunion. All is well that ends well.

Trivia that I get fascinated by: The entire movie is shot in studio (indoor and outdoor) or in and around Chennai. As a post 2000s movie aficionado, I could feel something lacking in the ‘atmosphere’ of the movie. The familiar Kerala landmarks and landscape that I am used to seeing in Malayalam movies were missing. The shooting location of Malayalam movies had not yet shifted from Chennai to Kerala when this movie was made, although it would happen in the next couple of years. Most of the female actors are also non-Malayali. Swapna (Manjari Dhody) is a Punjabi while Sumalata & Madhavi (Vijayalakshmi) are Telugu.

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