40 years of Bharathiraja’s Tik Tik Tik (Tamil 1981)

Because of his path-breaking debut, 16 Vayadhinile (1977), Bharathiraja has long been considered a movie director who excels in earthy narratives set in rural Tamil Nadu. But he has defied this stereotype from early in his career by also writing and directing a slew of thrillers in urban settings with urban themes, beginning with Sigappu Rojakkal (1978). Another such thriller, set in the glamorous world of beauty pageants, is Tik Tik Tik (1981).

When it comes to photography, Dilip (Kamal Haasan) is a ‘sakalakala vallavan’, a ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ — he is sometimes on assignment taking pictures for advertisements, and on occasion, he covers the return of beauty pageant contestants from abroad for a magazine. One such contestant that he photographs is Shirley (Sarika), who we discover is an unwitting mule for a smuggling ring. On her return to India, she is drugged, and surgery is performed on her to retrieve a diamond. Dilip has the misfortune of having to photograph her found body to accompany an article about her death.

Three women – singer Swapna (Swapna), model Radha (Radha), and Bharatanatyam dancer Sharada (Madhavi) are part of a modelling agency run by the beady-eyed Oberoi (Shamsunder). We soon find out that Oberoi runs the diamond smuggling operation. The three women are crowned as beauty contestants selected to represent India in international pageants. In the countries they travel to, all three have mishaps that ostensibly require surgery and it is implied that they have become unwitting mules too.

When the contestants return to India, Dilip is tasked with taking their pictures at the airport, but he misses Sharadha. He arrives at her home which she shares with a god-fearing set of parents. She is understandably furious at him for violating her privacy by barging into her house and taking her picture. This escalates into a conflict, also involving Dilip’s voyeuristic (and problematic) picture-taking of Sharada in a swimsuit when she’s out for a swim. Their conflicts are soon resolved by their mutual attraction traced over a song.

One day, as Dilip relaxes on the deck chairs, and Sharada is in the swimming pool, when she feels a hand pulling her underwater. Dilip pooh-poohs it off but also asks her about a scar on her thigh, which she tells him is from a surgery performed when she was abroad for the beauty pageant.

Soon, the couple has their first tiff, and Dilip’s boss, Lakshminarayanan (Thengai Sreenivasan) urges the inebriated Dilip to go to a particular address to overcome Sharada’s rebuffing of him. This turns out to be the singer Swapna’s house. After urging him to loosen up, Swapna steps into her bedroom which Dilip eventually enters, only to find her dead. As a fake medical team takes away Swapna’s body to extract the diamond, Dilip is on the run from the law, because he knows he is the prime suspect, even if he doesn't quite know why Swapna was murdered or who was behind it.

Dilip reaches out to Radha, who is from an orthodox family, modelling to support her ailing mother. Dilip had once told her that he would be the reassuring brotherly presence in her life. She takes him in but gets a call that her mother is seriously ill at a hospital. While Dilip waits in her house, Radha is abducted from the hospital, and the diamond is retrieved from her body. The next morning, the taps in Radha’s building spew red. When Radha’s body is discovered in the overhead water tank, her neighbours recognise Dilip as Swapna’s and now Radha’s murderer. Dilip is on the run again.

Meanwhile, Oberoi is delighted that the two murders will be attributed to Dilip but cautions his key henchman, Victor (Thiagarajan), that Dilip must not be caught by the police until the third murder is also done. Victor tries to abduct Dilip who escapes but not before recognising Victor from the events he has covered as a photographer. Dilip breaks into his darkroom, prints a picture with Victor in it, and sends it to the police with a note that Victor is responsible for the deaths.

Dilip is still unaware of Oberoi's hand in the murders, but meanwhile, Oberoi gets wind of Victor being a suspect. He has Victor killed, making it appear to be an accident. Dilip and Lakshminarayan interrogate a second henchman and find out that he is employed by Oberoi. Dilip sneaks into Oberoi’s expansive bungalow and overhears a conversation between Oberoi and his assistant, Nisha (Nisha Noor). During the same conversation, Oberoi discovers that Nisha knows about the murders of the pageant contestants, and about Victor’s death, but she naively believes it is happening behind his back. His secrets are no longer safe, and so, he kills her. Dilip comes to know that Oberoi intends to kidnap Sharada on her return from Sri Lanka the next day, so the diamond embedded in her body can be extracted.

Dilip must now race against the clock to save Sharada, and he does it with a conviction that appears borderline psychopathic, not only to Sharada but also perhaps, to the audience. He slaps her, pursues her and abducts her in a sequence reminiscent of Bharathiraaja’s own Sigappu Rojakkal (1980) where the psychopath Dileep (Kamal Haasan), chases his bride, Sharada (Sreedevi) who has uncovered the extent of his misogyny. Interestingly, both Sigappu Rojakkal and Tik Tik Tik had identically named characters, and this hounding is similar too, but with vastly different backstories and destinies.

Trapped together in an abandoned place, Dilip narrates the happenings to Sharada, and they reconcile but are soon pursued by Oberoi’s pack of dogs and henchmen. They are rescued by the police, and with evidence mounting against him, Oberoi swallows the diamonds he has, and kills himself before he can be arrested.

Tik Tik Tik’s music by Ilaiyaraaja became popular not just for its memorable background score, but also for its three songs that fit well within the narrative. ‘Idhu oru nilakalam’ by S. Janaki was filmed to feature the routine of a beauty pageant contestant’s glamorous life. ‘Netru indha neram’ by Latha Rajinikanth features Swapna singing at an event organised by Oberoi that is being covered by Dilip as a photographer. ‘Poo malarnthida’ is a peppy Carnatic music-infused duet by Jency and Yesudas featuring Dilip and Sharada’s growing attraction.

Tik Tik Tik was remade in Hindi as Karishmaa (1984) directed by I.V. Sasi, featuring Kamal Haasan, Reena Roy, Tina Munim and Swaroop Sampat, with music by R.D. Burman.