Sethurama Iyer

Sethurama Iyer (Malayalam: സേതുരാമയ്യര്‍, alternate spelling Sethuramayyar) is a fictional character, and the protagonist of the CBI investigative thriller series of films in Malayalam directed by K. Madhu. The character was played by Mammootty in four films so far.

Sethurama Iyer is an investigative officer of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Indian equivalent of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation. Iyer's popularity is attributed to the fact that he uses his brain rather than brawn to solve cases. The suspense-filled narration of the movies and the novely of the investigative thriller genre also contributed to its success and becoming a household name among the moviegoers of Kerala. The character is said to have been inspired by a police officer named Radhavinod Raju, who in 2009 was appointed as the first chief of India's National Investigation Agency.^[2][3] The four time portrayal of the same character (Sethurama Iyer) by the same actor (Mammootty) under the same director-writer team (K. Madhu and S. N. Swamy) is a first in Indian cinema.^[4]

Inspiration for the character of Sethurama Iyer

The character is said to have been inspired by a police officer named Radhavinod Raju, who in 2009 was appointed as the first chief of India's National Investigation Agency.^[2] Raju's excellence while probing the Polakulam Peethambaran murder case and SI Soman murder case, when he was acting as Superintend of CBI Kochi, attracted the attention of many. His "Dummy-to-Dummy" experiment in Polakulam Peethambaran murder case was used in Oru CBI Diary Kurippu. When Oru CBI Diary Kurippu became a hit, Mammootty became more famous in films and Raju in his services. Incidentally, Raju was Mammootty's senior in Maharajas College.^[5]

Radhavinod Raju was also associated with the probes into Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and hijacking of Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar. The films Mission 90 Days (which starred Mammootty) and Kandahar were respectively inspired by the operations of Raju in these cases.^[5]

Characterisation

Sethurama Iyer is depicted with a distinctive style in the films. The most charactertistic mannerism associated with him is his peculiar gait, as he folds both his arms behind his back while walking. In the first movie Oru CBI Diarykkurippu, he was shown as chewing betel, but this was dropped in the later films. His entries and exits in most scenes of the movies are punctuated by the signature background score of the series, composed by Shyam. He is always shown as wearing a kumkum stripe on his forehead. He usually wears plain light coloured half sleeve shirt and dark plain trousers, without tucking in. He is mostly cool even under intense provocation and displays his subtle sense of humour and extreme foresight from time to time.

Originally K. Madhu, the director of the film series had visualised the pratagonist of the first film in the series as a tough cop named Ali Imran. It was Mammootty who convinced him that a pious intelligent Tamil Brahmin would be better.^[1] Mammootty in an interview with The Indian Express in July 2005 said that "He (Sethurama Iyer) is brilliant. He is brave. He is bold. He is wise. He is intelligent. He is strong. He is good. He is...". The interviewer reportedly had to cut him short.^[4] However in the same interview, he expressed his slight displeasure in playing the same character again and again: "Personally, I prefer to get rid of a particular character after the movie is over. But this bloody thing is following me again and again. It is a lot limiting too. I cannot give a new dimension or nuance to the fellow. He is static."^[4]

Investigation method

Sethurama Iyer is an expert detective and mostly follows conventional methods of investigation. This can be attributed to the fact that unlike the FBI, the CBI do not usually get first-hand cases. Cases are handed over to the CBI when the local police is found ineffective in investigation or if the case is of national importance. In all his four appearances, Sethurama Iyer is allotted murder cases which were previously under investigation by the Kerala Police, so he and his team are not able to perform comprehensive crime scene investigation. He mostly has to refer to the reports made by the local police for information and they form the base of his investigation, though he doesn't trust them. He always conducts crime scene inspection for missing points in the reports and tries to collect further information from the scene as well as from witnesses by himself or using his associates. He usually asks his associates to mingle with the local people under cover, to collect various viewpoints including rumours surrounding the case. For cases in which the victim is suspected to have killed by falling from a height, he usually makes use of life-size dummies with the same weight as the victim to assess the position of the corpse under different circumstances. He almost always does extensive research on various details of the witnesses he is going to interview and overwhelms them with his information in case they tend to lie. He declares the results of his investigation in a meeting of all people related to the case, vis-à-vis Hercule Poirot.

Family

Sethurama Iyer is an Iyer from Kerala. He is married, and has at least one child. His son made an appearance in Jagratha (1989) but did not reappear in later films, though mentioned sometimes.

Appearances

• CBI film series
  1. Veendum CBI, 2014 (not Announced)
  2. Nerariyan CBI, 2005
  3. Sethurama Iyer CBI, 2004
  4. Jagratha, 1989
  5. Oru CBI Diarykkurippu, 1988

References

External links

• Sethurama Iyer at the Internet Movie Database