In a filmography celebrated for experimentation, technical ingenuity and extraordinary male performances, director-producer-screenwriter Singeetham Srinivasa Rao had a knack for creating women characters who were difficult to overlook. His heroines were not always ornamental companions to the hero. They could be eccentric, spirited, vulnerable, funny or quietly expressive — and sometimes they could walk away with a scene even when Kamal Haasan was standing beside them.Two characters illustrate this particularly well: Urvashi’s Thirupurasundari in ‘Michael Madana Kama Rajan’ and Amala’s unnamed young woman in ‘Pesum Padam’.Thirupurasundari was not imagined like the conventional heroine of a star vehicle. Singeetham allowed Urvashi to be unguarded — talkative, innocent, excitable and completely comfortable occupying comic space. Opposite Kamal’s Palakkad-accented Kameswaran, she did not merely react to his comedy; she helped elevate it.Their romance worked because neither character behaved like the standard hero or heroine. Kameswaran was awkward and conservative, while Thirupurasundari brought spontaneity and an endearing lack of sophistication. Even amid a film bursting with four Kamal Haasans, mistaken identities and an ensemble of formidable comic performers, Urvashi managed to give Thirupurasundari her own identity.The celebrated “Sundari Neeyum” sequence captured the tenderness beneath all that comedy. The humour did not diminish the romance; the romance did not require the characters to suddenly become glamorous versions of themselves. Singeetham appeared to understand that ordinary mannerisms could themselves become cinematic.If Thirupurasundari spoke enough for two people, Amala had no words at all in ‘Pesum Padam’.The beauty of Singeetham’s film lay in this contrast.Singeetham’s dialogue-free film placed enormous responsibility on its performers. Amala, playing a magician’s daughter opposite Kamal Haasan’s unemployed young man, had to establish attraction, curiosity, amusement and affection entirely through expression and movement. There were no romantic lines to explain what she felt.Her face became her dialogue. The romance between Kamal and Amala consequently developed through glances, encounters and small gestures. Singeetham did not need elaborate declarations of love. In a film where silence was the grammar, Amala’s expressive eyes and understated performance fitted naturally into his experiment. It also demonstrated Singeetham’s confidence in his actresses. Silence could easily have reduced a heroine to a pretty presence. Instead, Amala remained an active participant in the visual storytelling.The two women therefore represent opposite ends of Singeetham’s cinematic imagination.Singeetham’s films featured several accomplished actresses across languages, including Lakshmi, Sudha Chandran, Madhavi, Revathi, Urvashi, Rohini, Khushbu and Rupini. His cinema could also make women central to the premise itself. ‘Dikkatra Parvathi’, with Lakshmi at its heart, arrived early in his Tamil career, while ‘Magalir Mattum’ would later place Revathi, Urvashi and Rohini at the centre of a workplace comedy about women confronting a predatory boss.This was significant in an industry increasingly organised around male stardom.Singeetham could direct Kamal Haasan in some of his most demanding performances without allowing every other character to disappear around him. In ‘Michael Madana Kama Rajan’, Urvashi, Khushbu and Rupini occupied three different spaces in a crowded narrative. Their characters were not interchangeable romantic accessories.Perhaps that was part of Singeetham’s strength with performers. He was interested in character before glamour.Years after the films were released, audiences do not remember Thirupurasundari as merely “Kameswaran’s heroine”. They remember her name, mannerisms and chemistry with him. Likewise, the romance in ‘Pesum Padam’ remains memorable precisely because Kamal and Amala were able to make audiences understand a relationship that was not verbally articulated.For a filmmaker famed for asking cinema to do the unexpected, perhaps Singeetham’s treatment of his heroines followed the same principle.He did not always ask his women to behave like heroines. He allowed them to become characters.
