KOCHI: Securing a bachelor’s degree could not have been that easy for Salim Kumar, had it not been for the trust Prof K N Bharathan, the then principal of Ernakulam Maharaja’s College, bestowed on his talent.
“I promise you that I would bring prizes for the college at the university youth festivals.” That word from young Salim was enough for the principal to allow him to join the 1994 BA Malayalam batch.
In the first year itself, he kept his word. Salim bagged prizes in mimicry and mono act at the MG University Youth Festival.
“He was the star at the end of the youth festival. Soon he joined one of the mimicry troupes in Kochi,” remembers Prof C R Omanakuttan, who was then a faculty at Maharaja’s College.
“In the university youth festival held at Tripunithura, Salim was to perform a tableau with the theme of a tribesman fighting a python. Minutes before the programme, we found that he was not there,” Omanakkuttan recalls.
“Soon a depressed Salim stepped out of a cab saying he was backing out of the contest as he could not get a real python!” Omanakuttan laughs.
Later, when he became busy with mimicry and foreign tours as part of stage shows, he had to skip classes. Citing his attendance shortage, the university black marked him ineligible to write the final year exams. Yet, he helped his college bring laurels at youth festivals.
However, the college was not too rude to disown a student like Salim. In a unique move, the college authorities allowed him to continue there for two more years so that he would get the bare minimum attendance to appear for the examinations.
And Salim Kumar had the rare distinction of studying in a college for five years to get a bachelor’s degree!
