Though I was born in
a village called Nerkuppai in Ramanad District in 1942, I was brought up in
Bombay where I lived for the first 29 years of my life. I did both my schooling
and college and started my career in advertising in Bombay. My association with the creative world started from my school
days.
I remember when I was in the 9th standard,
my school, South Indian Welfare Society`s High School moved from Matunga to its
own premises in Wadala which was a 30 to 40 minute walk from my house in
Matunga. A group of us from the neighbourhood would walk every day to the school. This enlarged my
circle of friends which was earlier restricted to only friends who lived in the
chawl complex where I was living.
I became a part of a
group of bright students bursting with creative energy! It was a multitalented group
that wanted to participate in extra curricular activities like writing, singing,
acting, drama etc. But the school management was against the idea. I remember
the Lady Principal of the school telling
the students “Don’t waste your time on ` dramas and shamas`. Education is the
only thing which will give you a good career!” So she banned all extra
curricular activities in the school except the mandatory sports activities.
My group began to
feel frustrated. Some of us joined the “Bombay Tamil Sangam” as student members
as it was encouraging students with
talent in writing, debating, etc. I also mooted the idea of starting a Students
Cultural Association through which we could express our creative talents
outside the school. Thus was born the “Manavar Kalai Arangam”(MKA) with the
motto ‘To encourage ourselves’ and I became its Founder Secretary. All those interested in creative
pursuits from senior classes became
members of MKA. We started staging plays, some scripted by me. At the age of 16, I was
given the role of the father of the hero. There were other character roles with
minimum dialogues that I donned during that period.
Apart from staging
plays and conducting musical programmes, we also ran a manuscript magazine
called ‘Kalai’ (Art) in which some of us contributed stories and poems. I wrote
short stories and plays in Tamil. A friend, who had excellent hand
writing and who could draw illustrations for the articles, produced the
magazine! The one and only copy was circulated among all those interested
friends!
While in school I also passed the Govt. Commercial
Diploma in drawing which helped me hone my skills as an artist. This would help
me later in my advertising career. Thanks to a
box camera gifted to me by my uncle, I was also trying my hand at
amateur photography — limited though by the persistent cash crunch at home!
This interest in photography would later lead me to be involved in the
production of scores of A/V presentations for voluntary organizations like
Round Table and Rotary to raise funds for their projects. Those days A/V presentations were mainly slide/tape presentations. I would write the
script, shoot the slides myself and put together the presentation using professional voices. Even today I like to be involved in
some A/V presentations to keep in touch with my interest in the subject. The
last AV I produced was on my good friend
Charukesi. The six minute video film giving his life story in brief was
presented at a special function at Tag Centre to commemorate his first death
anniversary in January, 2020..
My involvement with the stage
Though MKA was wound
up after the group left the school, we
decided to start an amateur stage group called Fine Arts Creations. My friend Raghavan,considered
Nagesh of Bombay because of his thin stature and his ability to act like Nagesh
on the stage became a key figure of this group. One of our earliest plays was a
one act play titled ‘Pushpalatha’ written by Director K. Balachander. At that
time he had just got into directing plays. I remember visiting Madras with Raghavan
in 1962 to get KB`s permission to stage the play in Bombay. In
another play, I donned the role of Munuswamy a rowdy with one Muniamma as his wife. For the role of Muniamma we had to get a
female artist from Madras, as no Bombay girls agreed to act in our plays. My performance
as a rowdy in a lungi with a menacing mustache speaking the Madras Bashai was one of
the highlights of the play and one of the best roles I donned in my life. I
felt elated that I also had a lady
accomplice in the play. It also led to my being invited to take up roles in plays staged by Matunga
Dramatic Society (MDS) headed by S.R.Kasturi,who was then the Secretary of the prestigious Shanmugananda
Sabha of Bombay. MDS was the most famous amateur dramatic society in Bombay at
the time which staged a couple social plays every year. However the play on Saint
Thyagaraja featuring S.R.Kasturi in the main role became one of the best plays
staged by the group. It was awesome to see Kasturi sing the sage`s Keerthanais live on the stage accompanied by
live orchestra. I must confess that I picked up some knowledge of Thyagaraja
Keerthanais thanks to my involvement with the play.
I can never forget the three bit
roles I played in the play .In the
opening scene depicting Vaikundam I would
appear as Naradhar. In the middle of the
play in a court scene of the king I appeared
as a minister and in a scene in the last
part of the play where dacoits attack
Thiagaraja and his entourage, I was one
of the dacoits. It was fun donning different make ups for each of the role but
for the discomfort of wearing the special costumes and other items like beard
and moustache etc. hired for the roles. They were not only stinking but I found
it very difficult to control the itching
sensation that the false beard and moustaches
provoked. The play was not only
staged at the prestigious Shanmugananda Sabha in Bombay a couple of times but
also was taken to other suburbs in Bombay besides cities like
Nagpur & Ahmedabad. Being with the group was lot of fun. Since I had a problem of memorizing long
dialogues I was denied meaty roles by the director. However I enjoyed whatever role I played and
tried to give my best performance. Once I got into advertising and became busy
24x7 I had to give up my interest in acting on stage.
However I continued to nurture my passion for acting even
after I left Bombay. Acting was still in my blood. Since moving to
Chennai in 1974, I have acted in a
couple of advertising & short films. JS films, a joint venture
of director Jayendra and the award winning cinematographer P.C.Sriram, was producing a lot of memorable advertising films
in the nineties. I was offered a double role of a father and a grandfather in
an ad film for Shriram Chit Funds. I was thrilled when at the end of the
shooting , P.C.Sriram complimented me
for being an` one take artist`. There would be heavy schedule of the Shriram
Chit spots promoting their new series of chits in Sun TV for two weeks
preceding the Tamil New Year and Navarathri featuring me and another well known actress. During
those weeks whenever I went out for
shopping I would be recognized and people would stop me and ask me if I was the
same person who appeared in the Shriram spots. I used to enjoy the mini celebrity status
during the periods when the spots were being telecast for seven years in a row.
Recently I also played a cameo role in a short film in Tamil
based on my wife`s novella `Thayumanaval`, released at the Tag Centre on the
occasion of my wife Prabha`s 5th
death anniversary. It was the role of a henpecked husband without any
dialogues. But I think I was noticed for my performance because my ability to
use my eyes and face to depict the moods the scenes demanded. The latest exciting
project I am eagerly looking forward to is the Fun Web Series titled `Not Out` directed
by my favourite director Usha Rajeshwari,
targeting senior citizens in which I
will be playing the main role. It
was fun acting for the promo video of
the film. Unfortunately because of the
restrictions imposed by the pandemic the project has been delayed.
Interestingly during the 45 years of my life as an adman
running ad agencies, I never produced any campaigns myself. But the deep understanding of the
different aspects of the creative world helped me to motivate and get the best
out of some of the great creative minds I worked with. It was a long but an
enjoyable journey in the creative world the
memories of which I continue to
cherish even today!
( This article, translated into Tamil, is featured in this year`s (
2021) Diwali Issue of Ladies Special magazine,
a popular Tamil monthly with the dynamic Girija Raghavan as the editor)
