Book: Needhi Devan Mayakkam by C.N. Annadurai, Edhir Veliyeedu, 2023, (Reprint), 96 pages, 18 x 12 x 0.5 cm ISBN: 978-8196404697, Price: 120 INR.
by Kathiravan Annamalai
Realism reformed Tamil theatre by bringing the commoner to the stage. Unlike traditional Tamil theatre which was dominated by religious stories with extraordinary characters and celestial themes, modern realism brought theatre down to the streets through its engagement with ordinary people. The praises and eulogies dedicated to gods and goddesses were soon supplanted by the problems and plight of the ordinary people, leading to socially conscious plays. The Indian independence movement influenced the first phase of such social plays with the motto of disseminating nationalist consciousness. The second phase, the post-independence period, was shaped by the rise of the Dravidian Movement and its egalitarian politics. What makes the Dravidian Movement particularly unique is its union of art and activism. Against the social evils of caste discrimination, gender inequality, and linguistic and cultural erasure, they waged a battle not only in politics but also in culture and language. Using art as propaganda became one of the cornerstones of the movement, and the writers actively engaged in theatre and literature to construct a new Tamil-Dravidian identity instead of the one imposed upon them by the Aryan authority.
Influenced by Western dramatists such as Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, and John Galsworthy, Dravidian playwrights revolutionised Tamil theatre by employing it as a propaganda tool. Among them, C.N. Annadurai stands tall as a pioneering playwright of social theatre and a master of satirical subversion. In his essay “Dravidian Literature: Radical Features and Worldview” (2021), Raj Gauthaman identifies Dravidian literature as rebel literature and specifically credits Annadurai for his attempts to mock the venerated and his emphasis on the ordinary. This approach of trivialising the sacred aligns perfectly with Mikhail Bakhtin’s observation in Rabelais and His World (1984) that “laughter is the antithesis of reverence,” an idea that pervades Annadurai’s plays. All his literary works challenged traditional reverence through satirical subversion. He understood that deconstructing the sacred at the linguistic level could extend to dismantling it at the cultural level.
Speaking at the first drama conference in Erode organised by the TKS Brothers Company in 1944, Annadurai stressed the importance of moving away from puranic stories to social plays. He advised the playwrights to depict life in a realistic manner, and utilise theatre as both an instrument of teaching and a channel of entertainment. Most of his theatrical pieces are satires that combine humour, songs, action, dramatic plot twists, and political propaganda that were served to the Tamil public as what George Bernard Shaw would call the “sugar-coated pill.” By making audiences laugh at what they had been taught to respect and revere, his plays achieved something far more radical than political propaganda—he destroyed the psychological foundations of authoritative culture.
The strategy of ridicule worked well for Annadurai because of the liberating nature of laughter. When ordinary people laugh at the pretensions of their ‘superiors,’ they symbolically rebel against authority. He recognised that once people lose their reverence for traditional authority figures, they become psychologically ready to question the system that elevated them.
Needhi Devan Mayakkam (The Lord of Justice Fainted, 1947), a courtroom drama that appeared in Tamil, stands as a perfect example of Annadurai’s subversive satirical approach. The play presents an unprecedented scenario: Ravana defends his actions before a divine court in a modern set-up and challenges his portrayal as the archetypal villain by the poet Kambar, who rendered the Ramayana in Tamil. He subverts epic tradition through his eloquent self-defense and witty counter-accusations against the ‘virtuous’ characters of the Ramayana and other puranas. By granting Ravana the right to defend himself, Annadurai immediately challenges the traditional narrative that presents him as irredeemably evil. This simple dramatic device presents spectators with alternative perspectives on familiar narratives, undermining the moral authority of classical texts.
The play’s most hilarious moments occur when Ravana rhetorically exposes the moral failings of traditionally venerated characters. He points out Rama’s abandonment of Sita based on public gossip, questioning how such behaviour makes him worthy of worship. There is also a section when Sita appears and warns the audience not to take Rama as a kind-hearted person. Annadurai also highlights the deceptions and violence committed by supposedly virtuous characters of the puranas such as Kotpuli Nayanar and Dronacharya, revealing their actions to be often worse than Ravana’s own. Talking about the subversion in Dravidian rebel literature, Raj Gauthaman writes, “…puranic characters beaten by brahminical supremacy such as Ravana, Iraniyan, Kumbakarna, Karnan, Duriyodana…[were] endowed with contrasting, noble qualities” (Gauthaman, 112). This subversion creates cognitive dissonance for audiences who are accustomed to accepting these characters as divine exemplars. Annadurai’s vision in providing the arguments in a satirical way helped his propaganda to reach the unlettered masses.
The comedy in Needhi Devan Mayakkam serves a crucial desanctifying function. Humour reaches its peak when the God of Justice faints not once but twice while hearing Ravana’s case. This also sheds light on how divine authority cannot withstand rational scrutiny. In other words, even the gods are not ready to face the contradictions in their own moral system. The image of a fainting deity inevitably strips away the sacredness of divine infallibility by reducing the divine to the ordinary. Kambar’s visible distress is equally comedic when called upon to defend his narrative choices. His nervous shaking while attempting to answer Ravana’s charges creates physical comedy that challenges his credibility as a literary authority. The great poet, traditionally revered as a cultural treasure in Tamil Nadu, appears petty and defensive when confronted with alternative interpretations of his work. Writing about the laughter that such works provoked, Raj Gauthaman points out, “the laughter provoked by this ridicule reveals a truth. More than that, experiencing this laughter and living through it is important. The aim of such lampooning is to break the unseen chains that bind the Dravidian people” (Gauthaman, 112). Annadurai achieves the same liberation through this play by making people laugh at what chained them.
The play’s satirical strategy achieves more than direct political argument by making the audience active participants in the cultural war. It should be noted that Annadurai wrote this play during the anti-Hindi agitations in Tamil Nadu when the North vs South talk was on everyone’s tongue. Through this satirical play, he made Tamilians aware of what to laugh at and what to assert. When people collectively laugh at the fainting God of Justice or the trembling Kambar, they participate in the destruction of Aryan symbols of cultural hierarchies. By empathizing with Ravana, the audience understands what it feels being misrepresented and demonised. This shared experience of irreverent laughter and rational thinking creates temporary moments of dissent. Once revered figures become objects of laughter, they lose their power to be ‘sacred’. Needhi Devan Mayakkam and similar works by writers associated with the Dravidian movement did exactly the same by desanctifying the sacred by laughing at it. This strategy helped in the creation of a cultural climate where theatrical laughter became a tool for social change and the democratisation of culture.
Through the amalgamation of satire and humour in his plays, Annadurai transformed Tamil theatre into a space where the impossible became possible—where the audience mocked the venerated and imagined alternative social arrangements. In other words, this theatrical revolution prepared the ground for broader cultural and political changes that continue to shape and influence Tamil society.
Works Cited
Annadurai, C. N. (2023). Needhi Devan Mayakkam. Edhir Veliyeedu. .
Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and His World. (Iswolsky, H. Trans.). Indiana University Press.
Gauthaman, R. (2021). Dravidian Literature: Radical Features and Worldview. In Dark Interiors: Essays on Caste and Dalit Culture ( Baskaran, T. Trans.). Sage Publications.
Kathiravan Annamalai is a Research Scholar at the Department of English, Pondicherry University.
TheDaak review 
Leave a comment