CHENNAI: For generations of Tamil audiences, Solomon Pappaiah needs no introduction. His booming yet genial voice, effortless Madurai Tamil, quick wit and ability to turn an argument into entertainment made him virtually synonymous with pattimandram. Cinema, however, discovered something else in him: Pappaiah did not have to become an actor to hold the screen. He merely had to be himself.That small filmography is precisely what makes Pappaiah an interesting cinema personality. Unlike stage artistes who moved into films seeking a second career, cinema remained an occasional excursion for him. Tamil scholarship, teaching and public speaking created Solomon Pappaiah the personality; films simply borrowed that personality.Director Shankar understood the advantage particularly well in Boys.If Boys played on his identity as an adjudicator, Sivaji: The Boss placed him in a much bigger star vehicle alongside Rajinikanth. Film databases identify his character as Thondaiman.Here again, Pappaiah’s presence worked because he brought something that could not easily be manufactured by an actor — familiarity.By the time Sivaji arrived in 2007, his face and voice had entered Tamil households through decades of speeches and televised debates. He was no longer simply a professor or Tamil scholar. He was part of Tamil popular culture.Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Pappaiah’s movie stint is what did not happen afterwards.A memorable role in a Shankar film could have resulted in a steady stream of grandfather, judge, professor and patriarch roles. Pappaiah never turned himself into a conventional supporting actor.The pattimandram remained his principal stage.That separates him from many personalities who entered cinema from literature, theatre or television and gradually acquired a new screen identity. Pappaiah retained the old one. When he appeared in a film, audiences did not exclaim, “There is that actor.” Their reaction was closer to: “Solomon Pappaiah is in the film.”The distinction is important.His screen presence depended on authenticity rather than transformation. His Madurai cadence remained. The familiar smile remained. So did the conversational humour and the slightly mischievous manner in which a serious observation could suddenly acquire a comic edge.Solomon Pappaiah did not leave the pattimandram for cinema. Cinema occasionally walked into his pattimandram, borrowed the wit, the voice and the personality — and sent him back to the stage where he belonged.
