My association with the creative world.

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  5^th 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)