THIRUVANATHAPURAM: He was just a schoolboy then but the dignity with which the female enacted the role of a poor woman touched him deeply. ''I am not sure whether she acted as the elder sister or mother of the heroine but I was fascinated by a majesty that somehow seem to emanate from the lady,'' the schoolboy, now world renowned filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, said.
The lady in the play was Aranmula Ponnamma. The play was 'Yachaki', directed by Muthukulam Raghavan Pillai. Ponnamma, like it was usual for female characters then, was singing as well. She had a soulful voice and there were a lot of encores, Adoor reminisces. Later in life, Ponnamma acted in two of Adoor's films, 'Kodiyettam' and 'Kathapurushan'. The role in 'Kathapurushan' fetched Ponnamma her only national and state award for acting. ''She was a consummate actor. You just have to tell her what was needed and she reproduces it precisely,'' Adoor said. It was perhaps this innate respect that made Adoor Gopalakrishnan, as chairman of Chalachithra Academy, invite Aranmula Ponnamma to light the inaugural lamp of the International Film Festival of Kerala in 2003. ''This was the first time that a woman was given such an honour in the State. The foreign journalists who were present had written highly about this,'' Adoor said.
Also, it was when Adoor was Chalachithra Academy chairman that Aranmula Ponnamma received the J C Daniel Award.
The respect that Adoor felt for the actor as a schoolboy persists, perhaps more intensely. ''I strongly feel that it was her dignity, majesty and humaneness that lifted the very status of women in the film industry. You have to take into account the period she began acting. It was a time when acting was looked down upon. And here comes a woman who carries herself with amazing self respect,'' Adoor said.
Even in her late 80s the actor's innate goodness and simplicity had surprised the filmmaker. ''She used to come to the sets of 'Kathapurushan' all alone. She never bothered anyone,'' Adoor said.