Singeetham Srinivasa Rao’s ‘Michael Madana Kama Rajan’, a timeless classic from a master filmmaker

A middle-aged man rises from coils of celluloid, while Ilaiyaraaja sings ‘Kadha Kelu’ and urges the audience to listen to “a delightful, entertaining story.” The man, the forever-young Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, allows a group of children to look through his bioscope and watch the genre-defining story take shape. This is how the audience is taken into the world of Michael Madana Kama Rajan, the 1990 classic directed by a master filmmaker whom we lost today.

Of all the thoughts that surrounded me this morning, when I learned of Singeetham’s demise, I wondered how history would define the legacy of an auteur with such a prolific body of work. To the Tamil audience alone, Singeetham gifted Raaja Parvai, Apoorva Sagodharargal, Magalir Mattum, Kaathala Kaathala, and even Little John, among several other titles (of course, all Indian languages can claim ownership of the dialogue-free Pushpaka Vimana). However, if one film outweighs the rest in entertainment value, rewatchability, cultural resonance and the sheer number of filmmakers it has inspired over the years, it has to be his masala comedy, Michael Madana Kama Rajan (MMKR).

In fact, one could go so far as to call it one of the most often cited Tamil films of all time among cinephiles and filmmakers; even a few days ago, actor Fahadh Faasil said in an interview with Galatta Plus that a classic film like MMKR can never be remade. The actor said he rewatched the film recently and praised the vision of using a song like ‘Kadha Kelu’ as an exposition.

The story behind MMKR began when the late acclaimed writer-producer Panchu Arunachalam came across a Pakistani film written by Kader Kashmiri — information about which remains scarce — about quadruplet siblings separating at birth and reuniting later in life. After obtaining the rights to adapt that film in Tamil — and with Singeetham on board to direct — the job of adapting Kader’s story into a fresh screenplay was assigned to Kamal Haasan, who also starred as the quadruplets in the film. In quintessential Kamal fashion, he brought new life to the story, with some assistance from Singeetham and Kamal’s frequent collaborator and writer Crazy Mohan (who also wrote the film’s dialogues).

The ingeniously constructed and satisfyingly chaotic story they arrived at is one of the biggest reasons for Michael Madana Kama Rajan becoming the timeless masterpiece it is now.

A masala story for the ages

Now picture this premise: When a wealthy industrialist fathers quadruplets with a young woman, the man’s evil brother sends goons to kill off the infants to obtain all the family’s inheritance. However, the leader of the goons has a change of heart, due to which he splits them up. He adopts one of the infants (named Michael), leaves another at an orphanage (Raju), leaves another at a temple (Kameshwaran), and leaves one of the brothers (Madanagopal) inside the businessman’s car. Now, more than 20 years later, in a series of events that feel like perfectly timed firecrackers, the four brothers cross each other’s paths, and all hell breaks loose.