Puzo’s Southpaw

In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a segment in the classic Walt Disney Fantasia (1940),Mickey Mouse is a not-so-bright disciple to the world’s greatest wizard, who perceiving that Mickey is really mickey after all, takes a nap, forbidding the newbie to touch anything. Looks are deceptive after all, and Mickey proving that Shakespeare was right (What’s in a name? A rose…) snatches the grand wand and almost manages to destroy the world which might have been created by another act of trespassing. The guru wakes up just in time, and doomsday is averted. (We shall come back to the sorcerer, and his apprentice later…)

Mario Puzo wrote a novel in 1969, which Francis Ford Coppola filmed in 1972, and the rest is history - THE GODFATHER.

The tale of a Sicilian immigrant, who became a colossus in the American underworld, remained a family man till the end, and became one of the best known fictional icon in the world. In a rare instance, both the book and the movie are equally great and have become the most popular Siamese twin in the history of popular entertainment, and the debate is over who you like more/ or side with – Don Vito Corleone/Marlon Brando, or Michael Corleone/ Al Pacino.

Al Pacino is hailed as the crown prince of American actors of all times due to that one single role. Many aver that the younger version of Vito Corleone played by Robert De Niro in THE GODFATHER II is a more compelling watch, but nobody who has seen the whole franchise, or even one of it, can dislike it. ‘Hate him, fear him, despise him – but you cannot ignore him’ was the blurb for the central character in Puzo’s book. It stands true for the book, and the movies as well.

Cecille B De Mille is supposed to have said, that religion plus sex is equal to box office. Godfather proved that violence and family, and family above all is equal to box office eternity. The tale of a son detaching himself from his family enterprise out of disgust, and then being forced to take charge to get his folks out of the doldrums is universally everlasting.

And perhaps that’s why, it has inspired several Indian versions, and will continue to do so because family is one God in this land of many which will never go away, whether it stays together or not.

Feroze Khan, the original Bharatiya cowboy, and star of many a curry western, nosed out the gigantic appeal of the Puzo behemoth and produced, directed, starred in the first ever Indian retelling of the Sicilian family saga in Dharmatma, 1975. Premnath reprised Don Vito, and his character was fleshed out on a contemporary matka overlord, who was something of a Corleone in real life – an honest man in a dishonest trade.

Nayagan,1987, directed by Mani Ratnam with Kamal Hassan playing the central character is based on the real life Vardarajan Mudailar, a Tamil who rose from the docks of Mumbai to rule its underworld, is a spiritual cousin of the Coppola blockbuster, and has some similar frames as a tribute. It is an original work, except those frames, and yet its central core is THE GODFATHER, with Illaiyaraja almost matching Nino Rota’s haunting pastorale theme from the original.

It is tacitly considered to be the best Indian Godfather film till date.

In a remarkable decision, Feroze Khan, who brought the Puzo/Coppola magnum opus to India, remade Nayagan as Dayavan (1988) with Vinod Khanna reprising Velu Nayagan, and failed to go anywhere near his own blockbuster of more than a decade ago, let alone Mani Ratnam’s universally acknowledged classic.

This became an interesting pattern as it unfolded that THE GODFATHER was as irresistible to its inspired makers as to its audience.

Kamal Hassan, the star of Nayagan wrote, produced, and starred in Thevar Magan (1992), a Tamil film –his tribute to the Godfather  in a rural setting. The film was once again scored by Ilaiyaraja, and  won 5 National Film Awards. It was dubbed into Telegu as Kshatriya Putradu, remade into Hindi as Virasat(1997) by Priyadrshan, and in Kannada as Tandega Takka Maga(2006) by S Mahender.

Mohanlal, the iconic  actor, had starred in two inspired Malayalam adaptations – Naduvazhikal (1989), and Abhimanyu (1991).

Aamir Khan had essayed the role of Michael Corleone in Dilip Shankar’s Atank Hi Atank(1995), Abhishek Bacchan in Ramgopal Varma’s Sarkar(2005) and its sequel to the Vito Corleone played by his real life father, the legendary Amitabh Bacchan.

Amitabh, spoke his lines in the now celebrated hoarse voice of the original Don Vito, Marlon Brando in Agneepath(1990).

The stories would never end as the Indian fascination with the Puzo/Coppola creation would never get abated. It all began with Puzo, so let’s get back to him in 1969. When he wrote it, and even after it, for some time Puzo felt that it was his left hand’s work as he was interested in writing literature and not bestseller. His serious works never received as much attention as his ‘popular’ creation, and THE GODFATHER though falls short of being high literature, is nevertheless many leagues away from being another bestseller.

Like the sorcerer in the Walt Disney animation, Puzo was immune to his own creation’s potential initially, though later he got reconciled with it just like Vito did with Michael.

Russian literature is supposed to have come out from Nikolai Gogol’s, The Overcoat. And out of Puzo’s southpaw emerged India’s best loved story of all time after The Mahabharata.