Writer, journalist, adman, magazine publisher, film distributor, studio-owner, film-maker and film producer. S S Vasan (1904-1969) was all these rolled into one.
He was a translator of English pulp fiction, and author of serial novels and non-fiction, including the successful Indira Kumari and Mysteries of Wedded Life. He was a pioneering mail order salesman and publisher of crossword puzzles for prize money. He revolutionised the film industry with his lavish productions and box-office records in many languages. His Gemini Studios as well as the weekly he ran, Ananda Vikatan, were household names for a whole generation. Ananda Vikatan continues to be a successful magazine, though the family exited the cinema industry after his death.
Thiruturaipoondi Subramania Srinivasan, or S S Vasan, was born on 4 January 1904, in a poor Brahmin family in Thiruturaipoondi of Tanjavur district in Tamil Nadu. His father died when he was barely two years old. His mother Balambal brought him up independently, spurning assistance from the family. She ran an eatery where she offered oven-hot idlis to her customers, something unheard of for a widow in her circles.
Vasan’s mother was well read though unschooled, well versed in Sanskrit and Tamil classics, epics and religious lore. She instilled love of literature in Vasan. Mother and son migrated to Madras in search of economic well being, but life in the city was harsh.
Balambal’s ambition was for Vasan to obtain a B.A. degree, like every respectable S S VasanBrahmin boy of the period, but poverty prevented him from graduating. He was an enterprising young man, though, and he entered the challenging world of advertising, selling space for Madras-based publications. He was a one-man ad agency who wrote copy for Tamil publications for which he also obtained ads, travelling widely. Vasan also started a mail order business, a novelty in the country then. He needed a publication of his own to improve the mail order business and that is how he came to buy Ananda Vikatan for Rs. 200 (The founder of the magazine, Vaidyanatha Iyer, charged Rs. 25 for each letter of its name!). In fact, Vasan had submitted a story for publication and gone to the Vikatan office to ascertain its fate, when he found out the magazine was in the doldrums, and made an instant offer.
Vasan developed a keen interest in horse racing and earned a minor fortune with his bets. With the money so earned, he entered the world of films as distributor-financier in the name and style of ‘Gemini Pictures Circuit.’ In 1941, he bought a studio in the heart of the city on Mount Road, Madras, in an auction and named it Gemini Studio. From 1941 to September 1969 when he passed away, Vasan enjoyed great success in Indian cinema.
Ananda Vikatan
Founded in 1925, Ananda Vikatan was the first Tamil magazine of sustained humour. It had jokes, skits, cartoons, short stories and editorials, all of them touched by a sense of fun. Vasan gathered brilliant people around him. One of them, Kalki Krishnamurthy, went on to become the most brilliant of them all. A monthly till 1931, it first became a fortnightly, and later a weekly, in 1933. With Kalki as its editor, it sold 30,000 copies in September 1933, and 45,000 before the end of the year. In the 1940s and 1950s, the circulation steadily grew. In addition to Kalki, Vikatan had excellent cartoonists in the likes of Mali and Morgan. Serial novels were a feature of the magazine, which also included a panchangam or almanac. Assistant Editor Tumilan, another valuable contributor to Vikatan, ‘Naradar’ Srinivasa Rao and Devan (Mahadevan) joined Ananda Vikatan’s editorial staff and made it a powerhouse of talent.
A Telugu paper, Ananda Vahini and an English version, Merry Magazine, were added to the Vikatan stable, but these were shortlived experiments. Merry Magazine had a number of successful contributors in Deisvi (D Sundaravaradan), illustrator A K Sekar, Pepys (P P Samuel), cartoonist Mali and V C Gopalaratnam. SVV the humorist was another who joined Vikatan. R A Padmanabhan and his brother Gundoosi (P R S Gopal), P Sri Acharya and B S Ramiah were some of the other writers who made Ananda Vikatan a household name in Madras.
Vasan and cinema
Well known journalist Randor Guy described Vasan as ‘the Cecil B. de Mille of India.’ “Indeed he was the first Indian movie mogul,” Randor Guy wrote in The Hindu. “Spectacle, grandeur and opulence, he was the first film-maker in this part of the world, to invest the celluloid with such qualities. Like some kind of rare physician he knew the esoteric art of feeling the pulse-beat of moviegoers and learnt the exclusive and evasive skills of quickening it. He also understood that whatever might be the purpose and the value of the medium, cinema was basically a vehicle of mass entertainment and not education or elevation.”
Vasan did not hesitate to reject scenes shot at great expense, once he knew there was something wrong with them, even if the lowliest employee pointed out discrepancies. On one occasion, a huge set had been erected for one of his Hindi films to shoot scenes between the villain and the heroine. A boy working on the set pointed out a logical error in the scene to a friend. Vasan, who overheard him, agreed with the lad, ordered the entire footage scrapped and had the script rewritten. Another time, for a film with the modern theme of labour vs. capital, he held a naming contest among his employees and chose the best of 2,500 suggestions—Irumbuthirai or Iron curtain—rewarding the prize winner handsomely at a function got up to honour him.
The Government of India honoured Vasan with the Padma Bhushan in 1969, for his outstanding services to nation building through art and culture.
Filmography
(Vasan as director)
1948 - Chandralekha, Tamil Ranjan, T R Rajakumari, N S Krishnan, Maduram A superhit which revolutionized Tamil cinema. Vasan’s first directorial venture. Chandralekha, Hindi, Ranjan, T R Rajakumari, M K Radha Vasan’s first directorial venture in Hindi.
1949 - Nishan, Hindi, Bhanumathi, J S Casshyap, Ranjan, R Nagendra Rao, M K Radha, 1951 - Sansar, Hindi, David Abraham,
1952 - Mr. Sampat, Hindi, Motilal, Padmini, Kanhaiyalal, Swaraj, Vanaja and Agha Film version of R K Narayan’s novel 1954 - Bahut Din Huye, Hindi Madhubala
1955 - Insaniyat, Hindi Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Bina Rai, Jayant and Shobhana Samarth
1958 - Vanjikkottai Valiban, Tamil Gemini Ganesan, Vyjayanthimala, Padmini 1958 - Raj Tilak, Hindi Gemini Ganesan, Vyjayanthimala, Pran, Padmini, Gajanan Jagirdar, Bipin Gupta, Lalita Pawar
1959 - Paigham, Hindi Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanthimala, Raaj Kumar, Motilal and Johnny Walker
1960 - Irumputhirai, Tamil Sivaji Ganesan, Vyjayanthimala
1961 - Gharana, Hindi Rajendra Kumar, Raaj Kumar and Asha Parekh
1967 - Aurat, Hindi Rajesh Khanna, Feroz Khan, Pran, Padmini, Kanhaiyalal, David, O P Ralhan, Nazima, Lalita Pawar and Leela Chitnis
1968 - Teen Bahuraniyan, Hindi Prithviraj Kapoor, Agha, Ramesh Dev, Rajendranath 1969 - Shatranj, Hindi Rajendra Kumar, Waheeda Rehman, Mehmood