Maya Bazar.. the Mayajal still weaves its web. Review on Maya Bazar - Tamil Movie

Long long ago when the mind was free and imagination wild, energy levels never dipped and the body pliable i.e. when I was a child I saw a Tamil Movie dubbed in Hindi sitting on the road during a Ganesh Festival in Chembur, Mumbai. The movie, Maya bazaar, thrilled and fascinated me.

Years later I saw the movie in its original Tamil version in a Theatre when I was a very young man just past my teens along with my kid brother and sister and all of us were thrilled and fascinated (including my parents).

Now decades later I picked up a VCD of the movie while in Chennai and all of us my parents, my siblings and our children and some cousins and their children watched the movie on the TV. The movie still fascinated and thrilled all of us including a little Gujarati boy who did not understand a word of the Tamil dialogues!

The movie is in black and white and must be at least 40 years if not more years old. The plot is based loosely on a story from the Mahabharata. It details how Ghatotkach, the rakshasha son of Bhima helps, with his magic, Abhimanyu the son of Arjuna wed the girl he loves.

The movie is made by Vijya Films and stars some famous names of the South Indian film. There is Gemini Ganesh as Abhimanyu, Savitri as the girl of his dreams, NTR as Krishna, the heroine?s uncle and towering over them all Ranga Rao as Ghatotkach. The acting is consistent, believable and ? lol larger than life as befitting a mythological.

The costumes and the sets if you look closely may not look all that Authentic and most of the scenes are shot in set that look like ? lol sets. But you have to make allowances for the period when it was made and the technology available then.

The charm of the film lies in the character of Ghatotkach, whose sense of mischief, confidence and sense of fun comes through very clearly and rubs off on the Audience.

The sequence where he eats up the whole marriage feast , sings that immortal fun song ` Kalyana Samyal ` describing the food, and the way, through magic the ladoos and other stuff fly into his mouth is still one of the best scenes I have seen in any movie in any language.

The special effects were stupendous for the times but the way the situations are created and shot and the acting are equally brilliant and make the scenes enjoyable.

I was watching the kids during the movie and all of them identified with Ghatotkach! All of them wished the ladoos to fly into their mouths lol.

The music too keeps pace with the movies theme of fun, frolic and magic and is light and foot tapping. We had watched and enjoyed many cartoons and Disney films but the sense of fun this movie engendered in the kids was not matched by any of them. (The kids include me too!)

When I watched the movie again I realized that how the director had used limited resources with great imagination to create what looks like extraordinary effects in the movie.

Now whenever I wish to revert to my childhood I don?t suck my thumb but put on the VCD and gaze spellbound as Maya bazaar weaves its Maya around me.