Marmadesam - Ragasiyam

 For those who grew up with Sun TV, Marmadesam would be synonymous with great story telling and riveting weekly thrill ritual. It was one series that played a great part in establishing Sun TV as not just a credible replacement but a very strong opponent to DoorDarshan, which later waned into oblivion with its proud spot as the defacto (being the only option) channel for the masses. While DD was known for identifying gem of talents, Sun TV cashed in on their creativity with unhindered freedom. Indira soundararajan, the author of the books on which the marmadesam series were made, became quite popular after the series. I've seen Vidaathu karuppu, Rudra veenai when i was abroad and was amazed at the production values and the kind of casting alongside brisk story telling , which has made those series as fresh today as the day they were made. Never had a chance to watch Ragasiyam and by luck stumbled on an Youtube channel, who are playing these series. Thanks to them for bringing these back to public domain.

Interestingly i was reading the novel, when i got to know about the Youtube channel and it was kind of a parallel race, with me reading the book prior to watching the subsequent episode to see how the pages in the book translate to screenplay. On an average, every 11 page in the book had been made into one episode. In some cases, where there were hardly any dialogue, like the scene where Mani sundaram goes to temple via the hidden tunnel, while the book had crossed those sections quite quickly, the director had patiently gone through the whole episode, all of 20 minutes to establish the setting, hidden details and must say famous art work as well. In many places, the dialogues were straight lift from the book and the more i was doing this parallel task the curious it became for the book was only 280 pages long while the series had close to 70 episodes!! Even at an approximate estimate, the book wouldn't have sustained beyond 30 episodes, how much ever you drag the story. While searching for the drama series, i found that the director, having been tasked to make close to 100 episodes for this series, had written the extended portions by himself (or with support from the author) to extend the series. It was interesting to see how a story had been converted into onscreen play. 

Casting wise, Raamji (the Naga regular) gets to play Mani sundaram, Prithiviraj (who seemed to have landed several plum roles in many a famous drama series during that time) along side Vasuki (who had been his partner in crime on the Ramani vs ramani season 1) form the lead pair, with Delhi ganesh (varying between over acting and under acting), Mohan Ram, Subaleka sridhar (another Sun TV regular) forming the rest of the crew. Charuhasan has an interesting role as Mouna Saamiyaar, literally having no dialogue, neither in the book nor in the series. All he had to do is to wear a kaavi dress and possibly contact lens as well and stare at other actors for majority of the series. With almost the entire series been shot outdoors, wonder how they managed the budget and the temple where they've shot the series looks ancient even for that time. 

Be it as a series or as a book, Ragasiyam is quite interesting and possibly one of the good thriller genre stories in tamil.