THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For a gauntly young man with an unappealing look, college days would mean despair and frustration.
Things would be worse if he also happened to be one among the tear-away youths, pushed into college much against his wishes.
But for Laljose, one of the most popular film directors in Mollywood, college life was pretty much like his films — vibrant and colourful.
“How could it have been otherwise? I never wanted to study. Still I loved my college. It was here that I learnt college is not just meant for studying,” he says. He graduated in Economics from NSS College, Ottappalam, in 1987.
As the son of retired teachers, Laljose was forced to take up the science group for his pre-degree. “My father wanted me to become an engineer. For some reason, he believed I would become one.”
However his father’s trust was betrayed. “My mother believed in miracles, yet I failed,” he laughs. But his ever hopeful father made him reappear for the exam and this time it worked and Laljose entered the world of economics. “The subject has always been an enigma. There was no way I was going to learn that complicated science.”
A much brighter world awaited him outside class. “I found myself amid some guys who were immensely talented. Being with them helped me overcome a kind of ‘good for nothing’ feeling in me”.
He is a director, who has woven beautiful love stories on screen. Any inspiration from the college? “No way, not because I did not want it. I was more like a swan in the Nala-Damayanti love story. I used to pass on love letters for my friends. They were convinced that their lady-love would never fall for me,” he recollects with a sigh.
But Lal did have a love for which he would have done anything — movies. “My father never gave me pocket money. I only got money to purchase bus tickets. With this, I used to watch every new film that released each week. When there were many releases in a week, my savings were insufficient,” he says.
Thus Lal became a newspaper agent-cum-local correspondent of a Malayalam daily. “I had to wake up at 3am every day. I’ve never woken up that early in my entire life,” he quips.
During his college life, he literally rubbed shoulders with Malayalam superstar, Mohanlal. “I happened to reach Ottappalam railway station where the climax of a Mohanlal film was being shot. The situation demanded a crowd and an assistant asked me to join the crowd. In the scene, Lal sir came towards me, laid his hand on my shoulder and glanced ahead. At that moment, I felt the touch of the star and being so close to him was indescribable. Soon, I wrote letters to all my relatives and friends saying that I had acted in a film. But the scene was edited out in the final version,” he bursts into a laughter.
Laljose was a lovable student though he had a bad-boy-image. “Our college principal, Sree Ram Menon attended our farewell party. He never attends any farewell party but he came to our soiree because his favourite student (Lal) in the college was there. Till that day he hadn’t spoken a word to me. I never thought he even knew me. His words touched me deeply,” he says n
— aswin@expressbuzz.com