Nala Damayanthi is a 2003 Tamil film starring Madhavan, Geetu Mohandas and Shruthika. The movie is directed by Mouli and was written and produced by Kamal Haasan. It tells the tale of Ramji (Madhavan), a Tamil village cook from Palakkad. He goes to Australia to become a chef at a multi-millionaire Indian's home. Unfortunately, the millionaire dies of indigestion the day Ramji arrives, leaving him jobless. Ramji also loses his passport and visa. The rest of the film is about Ramji's return journey to Palakkad.
The film continues the story arc of a Palakkad Brahmin cook from the movie Michael Madana Kama Rajan (1990). Situational comedy takes precedence For example, Ramji suffers because of his lack of knowledge of English, which may look funny to the viewers but to him, it is not funny. Upon his arrival in Australia, he speaks to the cab driver in broken English to which the latter responds: “Can you speak English?” Ramji replies that he has been speaking in English to him. This very scene might seem comical to others, but it is definitely not so to Ramji because he is serious about it. He feels that what he is speaking is the English language.
Twining the harsh reality of difference of language experienced in a foreign country and comic timing is definitely an artistic achievement of the film director.
Nala Dayamanthi also portrays characters as struggling to adapt to the new culture. People look at Ramji strangely because he is different. Ramji is constantly followed by a police officer because of his ethnic identity A gang of thugs bully him constantly and they also refer to him as “black”. Ramji clarifies in one instance that, he is not “black” and that he rather feels that he is “brown.” It is the same group which troubles Ramji while he is performing the funeral rites and rituals on his dad’s death anniversary. The act of stamping the rice balls with their is symbolic of disrespecting a different culture. The differences are too wide , it is suggested, to blend together. While comic laughter caused by comic timing is a cause of mirth, there is always the perspective of the individual/s at the cost of whose normalcy this mirth is created. The green-card comedies like this film almost always make the individual from a financially challenged place or from a not-so-popular culture a butt of comic laughter. The humane aspect of the marginalised individual, in this case, the brown village simpleton Ramji, is usually overlooked. The harmony brought about by the reunion of Ramji and his wife Damayanthi whom he had married out of compulsion follows the popular film narrative. However, the experience of being perceived as an outsider by virtue of being different probes us to think about the intertwining nature of language and identity.
A language is not the same everywhere even when its grammar is the same. The manner of speech is as much a matter of identity as our complexion. While a large part of individuals in India continue to believe that English language learning is the road to eternal financial bliss, they miss the point that language is but an expression of the self. When we speak in a language that we do not internalise; it is the ‘other’ in us.
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