From the film ‘Seven Samurai’ by Akira Kurosawa

Character biography of Kikuchiyo –

Kikuchiyo, born to a peasant farmer’s family, had lost his parents along with majority of the
people from his village due to homes set ablaze and attacked by bandits there. Infant
Kikuchiyo was saved by his only sister, an elder one, who herself was so badly wounded that
she hardly made it to cross a stream holding Kikuchiyo in her arms. Although she was already
dead by the time she reached the bank of the stream, her commitment to rescue Kikuchiyo
served well when a group of peasants from the other village saw the child and took him off her
arms. The villagers, after seeing the signs of a peasant on the corpse’s belongings, inferred the
fact that the child belonged to their own community. After having taken the child to the
village, the child was adopted by an elderly couple who had no child of their own. Kikuchiyo
was brought up by his adopters in a society of peasant farmers.
Kikuchiyo’s step father, who wanted to become a Samurai, used to practice Samurai’s
techniques on the river’s bank. Young Kikuchiyo while growing up used to see his father
practicing and also imitated him, eventually aspiring to become a Samurai himself. After
having practised the techniques many times and mastering some of them so far, he started
considering himself partly a Samurai and due to this Samurai complex developed within him,
he was teased and mocked by his friends. Those mockeries being problematic and unbearable
to Kikuchiyo provoked him to fight all of his friends, ending up having no friends at all. He,
now being secluded from his friend’s circle, started spending most of his times in the forest
learning advanced Samurai techniques by his own. By the time he reached his teenage he
started calling himself a Samurai.
One day in a harvesting month, his village was attacked by the bandits. Kikuchiyo seeing the
villagers being looted and attacked by the bandits, insisted on fighting against the bandits right
away but his family and the villagers, being vulnerable and worried about the safety of
Kikuchiyo and their own families, prohibited him from fighting the bandits. Kikuchiyo after
all didn’t listen to them and went on attacking one of the bandits, who turned up alone in the
village, successfully driving him out of the village. The villagers, though knowing that
Kikuchiyo had now only made things worse for them and that too for himself, locked him up
inside a barn instead of appreciating his act of courage. The villagers then went on to
surrender themselves to the bandits giving up almost all of that year’s harvest to them. Due to
this, they suffered a severe food shortage in the village. When the matter with the bandits
cooled down, Kikuchiyo was let to come out of the barn but a rage lingered upon both the
sides now. The villagers were enraged by the act of Kikuchiyo that had got them into trouble
and Kikuchiyo was enraged at the villager’s cowardice. Enraged Kikuchiyo blamed villagers
of being coward and asked them furiously why they didn’t let him fight the bandits. Extremely
enraged villagers didn’t speak up unless one of them revealed to Kikuchiyo the fact that he
didn’t belong to the village and was an orphan. Kikuchiyo being shocked at this revelation
didn’t believe him and started hitting the villager badly. It was then when some other villagers
interfere backing the villager’s statement. Kikuchiyo being completely broken by this, went
into an identity crisis and started drinking. Gradually, he ended up becoming a huge drunkard.
Hence, being detached from his society, he went on to call himself a Samurai and refused to
go back to the society he once belonged to.
He tries to forget his past and has become nonchalant and careless about the troubles of his
own people. He searches for a Samurai community into which he could fit himself, but being
insecure about his past and identity, he fails to be so. He often acts funny in front of people to
repress the trauma of disowning his identity and being an orphan, which makes him a
humorous character in the society.

From the film ‘Pithamagan’ by Bala

Character biography of Sakthi –

Sakthi, born to a low-class Dalit family, being the youngest among his siblings. He had a
brother who was oldest of the siblings and an elder sister. Sakthi’s mother carried and dealt
with almost all the household’s work along with raising her children and looking after them.
She also worked as a maid in other’s houses who belonged to higher caste and class, to fulfil
the basic economic needs of her family. While she laboured hard all day earning for her
family, Sakthi’s father remained outside all the time, gambling and drinking with a spoiled
circle and at night he barely turned up at home. He occasionally showed up at his home, and
that too always drunk, only when he needed money. He used to forcefully snatch his wife’s
earnings by inflicting violence upon her. Young Sakthi watched his mother being in trouble
silently, being unable to do anything. However, he himself was bullied and ragged by his elder
brother accompanied by his friends. The only consolation for him and his mother remained his
sister, who was the only person in the family who used to spread joy and love. Sakthi, in turn,
was very protective of his sister. He allowed nobody to hurt her and often cheated and stole
from others only to present those as a gift to her. One of such gifts was a heart-shaped amulet
in which he later engraved the picture of himself and of his sister on either side. His sister
used to wear it on her wrist all the time. They played, went to school and ate together happily
and whenever anyone of them was in need, one remained available for the other.
One day Sakthi’s father appeared late in the night being heavily drunk and lost all his money
and belongings in a gamble. Unlike other days, this time he sneaked into house silently
looking around for his daughter. After finding her and everyone else asleep he rendered his
daughter unconscious by getting her to smell chloroform and secretly took her away.
In the morning everyone worried, went on searching for her all around the home and all over
the village but in vain. Sakthi searched for her all day long and ended up being into a forest.
By the time evening came, he found himself lost amidst the dense forest. Gradually darkness
lingered all around in the forest. Sakthi being both, scared and exhausted in search of his
sister, dozes off. Later that night he woke up dreaming something bad about his sister and
found the forest lit up by the full moon. He pulled himself together and stood up. Wandering
about the forest he found his father lying inside a narrow crevice where playing cards were
scattered along with a dump of fallen leaves. He hastily went on waking him up and after a
long effort his father partially gets conscious as he laughed intoxicated with a huge amount of
liquor. After getting known of his daughter being lost for the whole day he started laughing
more violently and uttered from his mouth a fact that Sakthi wouldn’t believe. His father
spoke up that he lost Sakthi’s sister in a gamble the previous day only and she was sold to a
weed dealer whom he didn’t know the whereabouts of. Sakthi shocked and taken away by
disbelief went into hysteria for the time being and opened his father’s head apart by a boulder,
splattering blood all over. After this incident he remained still since the morning, unless some
villages found him with his dead father’s corpse.
The matter was spread out all over the village and his mother beats him up badly for killing
her husband and making her a widow. It was then when Sakthi cried out uncontrollably while
he got beaten up. Police arrived at the scene and took Sakthi into custody where he went on to
serve a 7-year sentence for juvenile criminal act. After getting out from the jail his sister
remained unfound and his old mother went psychotic, being unable to recognize him as her
son.
Sakthi then got into contact with some of his childhood friends who work under a local
bigshot and was introduced to him by their reference. He started a business of trickery under
that local goon, in order to make for himself some money. He soon mastered the art and
became an independent con artist who tricked people in different ways into losing their
possessions. Eventually, Sakthi went on to make a huge sum of money by his trickeries and
turned out to be self-sustaining but there was still one thing that his life lacked, which was
love.

From the film ‘Pithamagan’ by Bala

Character biography of Gomathi –

Gomathi, the only offspring born to her blind parents, grows up in care of her uncle besides
her parents. Gomathi when born to the family was considered to bring good fortune to them.
In fact, her uncle sees her as a mere object of wealth generation and never sends her to school.
Her parents being disable couldn’t help it and was told by her uncle that all this was for her
own good. She was employed as an agricultural labour to a big land owner and whatever small
sum of money she was paid there was taken by her uncle. She grows up working there and
reaches her teenage. As she attains her puberty, her uncle sends her to a prosperous household
to serve them as a maid. She works all day following orders of the members in the house and
at night she cries hiding in a cow shed. Working there she meets the heir of the family, named
Gopal who was the only son to his parents and had no siblings. Gomathi gets attracted to
Gopal and eventually finds herself to be in love him but being from a lower-class background
she had developed an inferiority complex within herself which makes her insecure about her
caste and class background. She becomes more body conscious and overreacts whenever she
encounters Gopal.
Gopal is in his late teenage and is a spoiled brat. He remains outside home all the time,
hanging out with his friends, drinking alcohol and consuming drugs. He has a pride of his
class and caste, and always tries to dominate his presence in a group. He is violent and does
often show off his hypermasculine characteristics to females around him and his friends. In
fact, he is even feared by his friends as well. He looks Gomathi as his servant and stays
indifferent to her.
Lost in innocence, one day she asks Gopal to join her to a field where she was going to work.
Gopal agrees and accompanies Gomathi to the field. Both standing on a corner of the paddy
field look at the persisting scenery out there silently. Gomathi shyly looking at her fingers and
plucking her nails asks Gopal, did he ever love a girl? Gopal surprised at this question answers
that he never had any love affair. Gomathi then happily goes on to confess her love to Gopal.
At this, Gopal refuses outright to reciprocate the words said by Gomathi and insults her badly
dishonouring her on caste and class bases.
Gomathi completely breaks apart and goes into a state of oblivion. Her self-worth collapses,
and crying now and then, she bears her life helplessly. Meanwhile, Gopal sees her confession
as an insult to his pride and seeks to punish Gomathi for that.
On one particular night Gopal with his friends encounters Gomathi crying in the cow shed of
his house. Heavily drunk Gopal and his friends make sexual advancements to Gomathi which
she strongly refuses and defends herself running away from the house. Whole night she
remains outside, wandering on the streets and alleys. Tired she dozes off lying somewhere on
the street but her sleep doesn’t breed for long, as she gets caught up by some goons who
singing some vulgar song force inside her mouth the tip of a liquor bottle pouring some liquor
into her mouth. Gomathi horrified at the instance ejects out of her mouth the liquid and
defends herself against the goons but in vain. The goons take hold of her hair, thrash her badly
and try to rape her. Frustrated Gomathi gets hold of the liquor bottle and hits on the head of
the goon overriding her. She thrusts in the sharp edge of the broken bottle inside one of the
eyes of the goon and threatens others to run away. Crying heavily, she too runs away in the
opposite direction reaching directly to her home.
There she comes over to know that her uncle had sold her father’s property and exiled them
out of the village by faking the bond papers and deceitfully cheating her blind parents into
ruins. In fact, there was a rumour too in the village about they having been committed suicide
after the incident. Gomathi lost in disbelief curses her uncle in pain of losing her parents.
Being disillusioned, she goes in search of her parents all over the village but doesn’t find
them. Being homeless now, gradually she starts starving and gets ill severely. One afternoon,
intensely fevered and dehydrated she collapses on the ground but that day her life was saved
by a woman who was beating her drunk husband at the instance. Upon seeing Gomathi’s
terrible condition, she brings her to home and starts looking after her illness. This woman runs
her household by her own by selling weed. She teaches Gomathi of the business and tells her
that if she has to live independently and with dignity in the society, she has to do it. Gomathi
starts helping her out in her business, but soon a police inspector gets inkling about it and the
woman gets arrested disclaiming Gomathi as her partner.
Having no option Gomathi continues her business finding herself a friend who himself was an
orphan. Both make money by the business of weed and sustain themselves and each other like
a sister and brother, being loving support for each other.