Mogha Mull (1994)

The former bureaucrat Rajasekharan’s debut feature is an Ilaiyaraja-derived pop phantasy about India’s classical heritage. The genre usually features tragedies of unrequited love and how women are crucial to the creative muse of infantile geniuses. The film is set in the 1950s in feudal Tanjore. Babu, ten years younger than the unmarriageable Yamuna, is seduced by his voluptuous neighbour Thankamma, but he rejects her subsequent advances, causing her to commit suicide. This then enables Babu to find his true vocation as a musician under the tutelage of master Ranganna (Venu), as well as his true love and muse, Yamuna. The music, aesthetically resistant to the commercialism which besets the film, is emplotted into the crisis when Babu is forced to ‘sell’ it in order to raise money for his dying teacher. His failure in maintaining his incorruptibility forces him onto the streets of Madras, whence he is rescued by Yamuna who reinflates his musical genius.