A Different Take On Naai Sekar

Let me first outline Naai Sekar's story from the film "Thalainagaram."

1) SETUP - Vadivel's character as an ardent Trisha lover and becoming an actor to marry her gets established. Though his grandfather discourages him, he's resilient. He wants to go to Madras to become an actor.

2) THE OBJECT - Before Vadivel leaves, his grandfather gives him a box. The term given to it is called Plot Voucher, which means an object given to the protagonist to use it when faced with an obstacle in the future.

3) NEW WORLD - Our protagonist arrives at Madras. People who enter film industry are prone to meet all kinds of characters, the good, the bad, the evil and the dubakoor. Vadivel meets one. A dubakoor.

4) NEW AVATAR - The dubakoor changes Vadivel's getup into 1980 Billa for a portfolio after taking away his money and ring.

5) FIRST CONFLICT - Fake Billa gets mixed up and gets caught by the cops who are in search for the real Billa. He gets released upon investigation.

6) SECOND CONFLICT - He changes his getup into a cop, and gets kidnapped by goons. Again mistaken for being some other cop. The goons seem to be mental patients and he gets rescued by the mental asylum workers.

7) FINAL AVATAR - Vadivel finally settles for a minimal version of a don, a local rowdy. Hoping this will get him into the film industry. 

The portfolio shoot takes a 'U' turn when the old man whom he uses as a prop dies.

 He gets chased by the associates of the old man, and gets locked at a dead end street.

8) PLOT VOUCHER REVEAL - Like mentioned before, Vadivel uses the box his grandfather gave, finds a barber's knife in it and defends himself.

9) BIRTH OF A ROWDY - The chasers keep giving Vadivel names which he doesn't like. So he names himself, Naai Sekar.

 

10) SPREADING TERROR - He forgets his actual purpose and starts behaving like a local rowdy.

He meets a new guy Subramaniam, who works in a soda shop.

He instills a love in him, saying there's a girl Divya who's waiting for her uncle name Naai Sekar for so long. 

11) MOTIVE DISCOURSE -  He starts trying to impress Divya, but fails miserably every single time. He has now forgotten his cinema ambition and marrying Trisha.

12) BACK STORY - The Joker from The Dark Knight keeps narrating different tailored stories about how he got his scars. Naai Sekar does the same.

13) NAANUM ROWDY DHAN - On another attempt to impress Divya, he gets voluntarily arrested to prove others that he is a real rowdy. This scene states Vadivel has totally buried his actual character and adapts a new persona.

14) HEARTBREAK - Naai Sekar gets to know that he is not the real person whom Divya was waiting for. 

He bids adieu and leaves.

15) BROKEN BUT NOT BROKEN - When we feel Naai Sekar's love has failed and he's heading back to his village, he picks himself up.

 

He puts forth his new motive, i.e., finding another woman; Nayanthara. 

 

Just like how Marvel films have a post credit scene which sets a connection to a sequel, Naai Sekar sets one. Naai Sekar 2.

REAL or UNREAL: 

We might think the protagonist lost his track on his motive, cinema and Trisha. But he didn't. If you look at his obsession with Trisha in a different way, it'll make sense. Vadivel's character has been longing for a female companion for so long, he embodies his other half in Trisha's form.

Naai Sekar says, "Trisha illana Divya." He gets a chance to fall in love with a real woman, he let goes of his obsession with Trisha. Trisha is fiction. Divya is real.

 

Finally when he says he going after Nayanthara, we can presume he reverts back to his old self, who wants to become an actor and marry her. 

Look at his grandfather. He tells his grandson that he once loved Padmini but his love went in vein.

Looks like no one in this family got to marry and live with the one they loved. Gives a solid reason for Vadivel to find and marry a girl he loves to break the family curse.

We can delve much deeper. Like fictitious Trisha, him wanting to go to Madras to become an actor is also not real. In reality, it means he's heading to Madras to find a real girl (not Trisha) whom he can marry. Maybe because he couldn't find any woman in his village. In short becoming an actor correlates to finding a woman and Trisha is a the fake imagery of a woman whom he wants to find.

360 DEGREE:  

He starts his journey as a don. Gets caught by the cops. changes his identity into a cop, gets kidnapped by goons. At the end, he starts where he began his journey, a miniature don.

REVISITED: Getting into Naai Sekar's back story. 

a) Let us assume his back story is real. Divya spending more time with him back in childhood days, the bond they shared, this might be the seed for his search for love of his life.

b) Not the truth. Subramaniam tells Naai Sekar that Divya is longing for his long last uncle Naai Sekar. Naai Sekar himself knows Naai Sekar is not real. But he narrates a kutchi mittai story about him and her on the spot which is not true. Trying to impose a sense of sympathy on her to fall in love him with.  

We can take Vadivel's character as a lunatic or a person who lead his life in a metaphorical way. This too, is for the audience to decide what to choose.

It's amazing and funny when we turn a coin and look at the other side, the entire meaning shifts from what we perceived. 

Comedians are usually cast as a punching bag or useless sidekick without any relevance to the story. Considering that, even without the metaphorical emphasis which I made, just the story of Naai Sekar shown has a good structure for a film and as a character.

Naai Sekar is our legacy.

- Nirmal S. Sudarsana

(naanum blogger dhan)