When Nedumudi Venu was in class VI at the Nair Service Society School, he got a role in P K Veeraraghavan Nair’s play ‘Industry’.
He acted opposite Gopi, an experienced artist, who had a habit of improvising.
“Gopi had a knife as a prop and would pretend to cut his nails or scratch his back with it,” says Venu. “The audience clapped when he did this.” Venu realised that if he wanted to avoid being overshadowed, he had to do something like that. His costume included a large moustache and a huge mop of hair.
Suddenly, he pretended to pluck a louse from his hair and kill it.
“The audience laughed,” he says.
Gopi retaliated by using his knife to take out a bit of imaginary food stuck in his teeth. Immediately, Venu took out another louse, this time, from his thick moustache. “I was applauded again. That was how I learnt to improvise.” Venu acted in many plays during his school years. Once he played a woman in a drama competition and won the ‘best actress’ award. In 1969, at the S D College in Alappuzha, there was a ‘serious’ and ‘humorous’ acting competition. “The winner was (future director) Fazil in the serious role while I bagged the prize for the humorous role.
That was how we became friends.” Venu stayed with Fazil at his home in Alappuzha and they collaborated on plays and mimicry skits. During another college competition, Fazil got the best director award while Venu was the best actor. This time, one of the judges was wellknown theatre personality Kavalam Narayana Panikar. After the prize distribution ceremony, Kavalam invited Fazil and Venu to join his troupe which they gladly accepted. One of Venu’s first roles was that of an astrologer, Kalan Kanian. “He had an instrument called the udukku and would sing songs. There were several choreographic movements.” Some of Kerala’s well-known cultural figures - G Sankara Pillai, Ayyappa Panikker and CN Sreekandan Nair - came to watch the play. “All complimented me on my performance. It was a huge encouragement.” When Kavalam moved to Thiruvananthapuram, Venu went along.
There he befriended director G Aravindan.
Because the income from plays was irregular, Kavalam and Aravindan got him a job as a reporter in the ‘Kalakaumudi’ weekly magazine. Venu wrote features on stalwart musicians M D Ramanathan and Chitti Babu, theatre greats like Thoppil Bhasi and writers like Prof N Krishna Pillai.
Pillai was a formidable interviewee.
“If you wrote an article on him, Pillai would insist on reading it before it was printed,” says Venu. “He said that if one made a small change, the meaning would change completely.” Unfortunately, because of a short deadline, Venu was unable to show him the piece. When the article was published Venu avoided Pillai. But one day at a meeting Pillai suddenly spotted Venu and said, ‘Have you learnt shorthand?’. When I said ‘No’, he asked me how I had managed to quote me so accurately. It was a great moment for me. Pillai embraced me and told everybody, ‘He is going to become a big journalist.’” One day, Venu went to interview Chennai-based director Bharathan at a hotel in Thiruvananthapuram.
After the interview, Bharathan invited Venu to spend time with him in the evening.
“I started going regularly.
We became close, but Bharatan did not know I was an actor until his friend Padmarajan told hm that I was a prominent actor in Kavalam’s troupe. That was a turning point. Immediately Bharathan gave me the hero’s role in his next film, ‘Aaravam.’” By then Venu had started shooting for Aravindan’s ‘Thambu’.
Neither film made an impact at the box office.
The big moment for Venu came when he acted as Chellapan Asari in Bharathan’s ‘Thakara’ in 1980. Because the cast had unknown actors like Prathap Pothen, Surekha and Venu, no distributor was willing to take the film. It took two years for the film to be released but it became an unexpected hit.
Thereafter there was no looking back.
Venu, in a 30-year career, has acted in more than 350 films. At the Navodaya studio at Kakkanad, Venu, with grey hair and stubble, is dressed in a brown cassock, with a cross hanging round his neck. He is playing the role of a priest in Lal’s ‘In Ghost House Inn”.
In the midst of the hectic shooting he expresses gratitude for his career. “In one life I have a thousand births as an actor. It is a blessing.
But there is a negative side to it. I am so immersed in the roles that I sometimes lose touch with who I am. So I am on an inward search to know the real Nedumudi Venu.”
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(This column traces the turning points which make or mar a person’s life)