Seven-time National Award winner, lyricist and poet Vairamuthu said winning the National Award for Best Lyricist (Dharma Durai’s “Entha Pakkam”) was like visiting the house of every Tamil person. He was speaking at a thanks meet attended by a number of National Award winners from Kollywood this year, including Joker director Raju Murugan.
While Raju Murugan told Silverscreen that directors had to make films that were socially responsible, regardless of genre, Vairamuthu was full of praise for the media.
Vairamuthu said, “Journalists, critics…all of them help the film fraternity reach heights. Criticism can be comparable to two things – you throw a stone at a glass, it breaks and you leave or you can hammer that stone skillfully and it helps in giving shape (like a statue).”
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Vairamuthu also said that the current crop of artists were luckier than the legends who came before them. “There were so many legends earlier. The present generation is lucky enough to witness them. But those legends didn’t have what we have now – advertisement,” he said.
While congratulating other winners, including critic Dhananjayan Govind, Joker director Raju Murugan, and producer SR Prabhu, Vairamuthu emphasised that no media was too small or too big. “Whatever the criticism, take it lightly. Whether a small media or a big media criticises you, never look at them in terms of their size. Look at media as media.”
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Meanwhile, Raju Murugan – whose film Joker won the National Award for Best Film and Best Singer (Sundarayan) – spoke to Silverscreen about a director’s responsibility towards his/her audience.
“The National Award covers almost all categories, among feature and non-feature, art films. Any genre of films has to include some social message. Be it an entertaining film, a serious film, or a comedy – a director has some social responsibility towards doing that,” he said.
The recent controversy around the National Award winners instigated a debate on how credible the awards were. When asked on this subject, he said, “We didn’t make this film with the aim of winning awards.”
Raja Murugan is currently working on a project, whose details are likely to be announced soon.