Kushboo: Under glare

Chennai, Aug. 28: Once damned, forever damned. That seems to be the plight of free-speaking Tamil actress Kushboo.

Last year, preservers of pure Tamilian culture had been livid when she said she saw nothing wrong in girls having sex before marriage provided they took care en-ough to be safe.

So, they had marched to her home with slippers and brooms and paraded her effigy on a donkey for daring to mouth views that went against the “ethos of Tamil culture and Tamil women”. Some had even thrown rotten tomatoes at her in a Mettur court.

Now, they are furious because a film on Periyar, the late social reformer of the Dravidian movement, will have her playing his much younger second wife, Maniyammai.

PMK legislator Velmurugan today almost threw a fit in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. Without mentioning Kushboo by name, he thundered: “How can she act in a film, that too funded by the government, when she has raised disconcerting posers about Tamil women’s chastity?

“Tomorrow, if the film on Periyar is going to be honoured by this government, will you also honour her on stage, someone who sought to undermine Tamil culture?”

There was no instant solution forthcoming because state information minister Parithi Ilamvazhuthi declined to talk too much as a petition is already pending in Madras High Court.

But he said: “What is important is the actor’s histrionic talents, not who the actor happens to be.”

The PMK and DPI, who had launched a state-wide protest against Kushboo last year, would obviously not agree. More so, because M. Karunanidhi had announced a Rs 95-lakh grant for the film to tally with the age at which Periyar died.

The film Thanthai Periyar will be directed by Raja Gnan-asekharan and will have Sathyaraj, an avid Periyar follower, playing the lead. Malayalam actress Jyothirmayi will play the first wife.

Dravidian icon Periyar had founded the Dravidar Ka-zhagam that spawned a slew of Dravidian offshoots down the years. His marriage to Ma-niyammai had raised a political storm and was a reason for Annadurai and Karunanidhi walking out of his party and floating the DMK in 1949.

Now, Kushboo as Maniyammai has stoked a reel storm. But the actress said she would do the role, regardless of protests.

Sources said she could have been picked for the role because her natural assertiveness and rounded looks mat-ched those of the late Ma-niyammai.

“Raja Gnanasekharan, the director, is an able film-maker who made the acclaimed film on the late nationalist Tamil poet, Subrahmanya Bharathi. He would certainly do a very professional job of this film too,” a source said.

Dravidar Kazhagam leader K. Veeramani has personally thanked chief minister Karu-nanidhi for the grant he sanctioned for the film.