Guru Sishyan - A Political Satire

The main storyline of the S.P. Muthuraman-directed Guru Sishyan (1988) is quite simple: two convicts released from prison - Raja alias "Guru" (Rajinikanth) and Babu alias "Sishya" (Prabhu) - are determined to clear the name of their fellow convict Manohar (Pandiyan) because he was falsely incriminated for murdering a taxi driver by a villainous quartet: playboy Muthuraaj (Radha Ravi), his greedy brother Rajamanickam (Ravichandran), Rajamanickam's partner Jayaram ("Cho" Ramasamy) and dirty cop Nallasivam (Vinu Chakravarthy). The others important characters are Nallasivam's daughter Geetha (Gautami), Rajamanickam's daughter Chithra (Seetha), Manohar's father Kandhasamy (Senthamarai), Nallasivam's wife N. Kalyani (Manorama), Babu's father IG Sriram (LIC Narasimhan), the ill-fated taxi driver (Nagaraja Chozhan), Kandhasamy's wife Padma (Padmasri), and Pandiyan's sister Sumathi (Sudha).

Guru Sishyan is a remake of the Dharmendra/Jeetendra-starrer Insaf Ki Pukar (1987), but differs in a number of ways: the original was a typical 80s Bollywood serious action movie, dealing with issues like rape, murder, miscarriage of justice, police corruption and revenge. While the remake follows all of this faithfully, it is more humorous in nature, but more importantly, makes a number of political references, mostly satirical! The opening number "Naatkaalikku Sandai Podum Naamellam Paithiyam Thaanda" (We who fight for a chair are mad) unabashedly references the time when there was infighting for power within the ruling AIADMK after it was split into two factions following the death of founder MGR: one faction led by his wife V. N. Janaki, the other by his most frequent screen heroine Jayalalithaa. Maybe the lyricist foresaw the fight for a different type of chair?

Like many 80s Rajinikanth movies, Guru Sishyan has revenge for an attacked/murdered family member as one of its central themes; yes, Manohar turns out to be Raja's brother, and therefore Sumathi, who was raped-murdered by Muthuraaj, is his sister. And their father was held prisoner by Rajamanickam because he knew the location to a treasure cave, told to him by the late criminal Solomon (K. Natraj). Kandhasamy was framed for murdering Babu's parents by Rajamanickam, so both Raja and Babu want revenge against him for fracturing their families. However, their intention is not to achieve revenge through murder and violence (unlike typical 80s Tamil action movies), but justice: by seeing the quartet arrested. The movie blends multiple genres: while primarily an action comedy, it has tinges of romance (Raja with Geetha, Babu with Chithra), drama, and the last act involving the cave makes it an adventure of the Indiana Jones and DuckTales kind.

Nallasivam, just like the inspector played by Kader Khan in Hindi, is exactly the opposite of his name. While Khan's inspector was ironically named "Imaandaar" (honest), Nallasivam is anything but "Nalla" (good); he only complies with the heroes because he is in threat of being exposed as a dirty cop. So maybe he better be called "Ketta Sivam", and we do hear that name onscreen. But why Jayaram always calls him Nallasavam is anyone's guess. In the quartet, only Rajamanickam looks like a devious and feared villain; the others are clownish and laughable like the Team Rocket trio from the Pokémon anime. On 28 January 1988, a scuffle happened in the Tamil Nadu assembly, where politicians beat each other with mikes, chairs, etc. Raja's dialogue "Mike aala pesaradhu andha kaalam, mike aala adikkaradhu indha kaalam" (Talking through the mike is old, beating with the mike is new) perfectly surmises this.

Cho was, and still is, best known for his works containing political references. The scenes where Jayaram makes strange hand gestures - two fingers forming a V, followed by a hand with all fingers pressed together and the palm facing front, then a wide-open hand with the fingers wide apart - while thinking deeply, are references to the logos of political parties: the two leaves of the AIADMK, the hand of the Congress, and the rising sun of the DMK. He says in one scene after seeing a bypasser, "Naalike katchi aarambicha thalaivi aaiduvaanga, apuram chief minister aanaalum aalaam, namakku yaen vambu?" (If she starts a party tomorrow, she'll become the leader, then she may become the chief minister! Why do we need problem?) which might be a reference to Jayalalithaa. Near the end of the movie, when he parts with Rajamanickam and attempts to join Muthuraaj and Nallasivam's side, he says, "Naan Venumna Katchi Maararen" (If you want, I'll change parties) which too sounds so obviously political.

Though shooting for Guru Sishyan was completed in less than a month, the final product hardly looks half-baked or rushed, and Rajinikanth's various English malapropisms only add to its excellency. The movie was released during Tamil New Year in 1988, when TN was still in political disarray after MGR's death in December 1987, but that hardly affected its box office performance, even though the movie indirectly attacks the AIADMK. In fact, Insaf Ki Pukar's Telugu remake Guru Sishyulu (1990), also directed by Muthuraman, more faithfully follows Guru Sishyan, even the songs from Tamil are retained in Telugu: "Naatkaalikku Sandai..." becomes "Kurchi Kosam", "Kandupudichen" becomes "Dhorikavoi", "Jingidi Jingidi Unakku" becomes "Jingidi Jingidi Beauty", and "Vaa Vaa Vanji Ilamaane" becomes "Edo Nippu Antukundi". However, "Uthama Puthiri Naanu" was replaced by "Mathuga Chithuga", an original composition.