situation that was marked by romanticism pudhumaipithan succeeded in holding up the mirror of stinging realism and satire to society in his short stories though the highlyinventive story writer cannot be reduced to any ismwhen after 11 years as a journalist in various publications pudhumaipithan was financially back to square one he looked to the film world for succour he had before him the example of m k thyagaraja bhagavathar and journalists such as elangovan b s ramaiah and k ramachandran ki ra who had shifted to the film world successfully director murugadasa who was with gemini studios then is said to have had a hand in this transition he roped in pudhumaipithan to do the script work of geminis avvaiyar being signed by a premier production house gave pudhumaipithan hope as did the advance amount he brought a whiff of fresh air to his interpretations of the magical figure of avvaiyar but finally nothing came out of the seemingly neverending project for him the film was finally released in 1953 without any credits to himpudhumaipithan was paid handsomely for the story and dialogues of kamavalli 1948 but as there is almost no trace of the film except for a song book we can only guess the impact of his work from contemporary reactions to it veteran film director raja chandrasekhar is said to have recommended pudhumaipithan to thyagaraja bhagavathar saying that his lines for kamavalli were like sparks that fly from the grinding wheel when blades are sharpened pudhumaipithan was booked by bhagavathar who was also the producer of the filmin between pudhumaipithan began work on a script on kattabomman the poligar who battled with the east india company but this film did not take off he started his own production house parvathakumari productions in the name of his mother whom he had lost when he was eight getting into production was a terrible mistake that drained him of the scanty resources he had as well as his peace of mind and wellbeingit was in this state that pudhumaipithan went to pune to complete his script for rajamukthi the letters he wrote from pune speak of the horrors he faced even as he wrestled singlehandedly with his work on the one hand and the ravages of tuberculosis on the other add to this the spectre of a riottorn pune after the assassination of gandhi when at last he returned to thiruvananthapuram a friend marvelled at his courage at having attempted the journey but pudhumaipithan had only returned to die among those who cared for himthe writer is a historian of tamil cinema and an author of several books on the subjectemail your feedback to southpole toitimesgroup com