THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CIRCA 1952, Sathyan and Prem Nazir had prominent roles in ‘Thyagaseema,’ a film project of K Balakrishnan, writer and editor of Kaumudi. But as fate would have it, ‘Thyagaseema’ never made it to the screen. On Friday evening, the clapperboard from the movie resurfaced at the Nishagandhi auditorium for an important role.
It was by ‘clapping’ it that Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran inaugurated the 90th birth anniversary of Prem Nazir before a packed audience. “Sathyan played a gruff character in the movie. There was a softer, gentle character too in it.
At the time, Nazir had approached Sathyan to see if he could get a role in films. Sathyan asked him to go meet Balakrishnan,” said Maniyanpilla Raju, who ‘introduced’ the clapperboard to the audience.
“Prem Nazir got the role. Sadly, the movie never got released,” he said.
The evening was replete with such anecdotes as colleagues and yesteryear leading ladies, including Sheela and Sharada, recounted their memories of Nazir who acted in a whopping 725 films, the highest for any actor.
Tale of a chair
Sheela, who was Nazir’s leading lady in a record 130 films, recounted the story of a chair.
“In those days, Malayalam films were shot in studios in Tamil Nadu and Andhra. There, the Tamil and Telugu leading actors would have special plastic chairs for them with, say, ‘MGR’ or ‘Jayalalithaa’ written on the back.
We would get a wooden chair, if we were fortunate. I thought that was not right. Jayalalithaa told me where I could get similar chairs. I got two, one for Nazir and one for me.
He was shocked when I told him. He wanted to know why we should get chairs when others (on the set) did not have any. But later he did use it,” Sheela said. ‘Inapraavukal’ was Sarada’s first movie with Nazir. “I didn’t know a word of Malayalam. But he told me not to worry,” Sarada recalled.
‘My first heroine!’
Neyyattinkara Komalam, Nazir’s first heroine in movies, was among those felicitated on Friday.
“It was in 1953. He was called Abdul Khader then. After that I left the field. But one day I got a wedding invitation. It was from Nazir inviting me for his son Shanavas’ marriage. I went and I was surprised when he recognised me. He came up to me saying ‘My first heroine!” Komalam said.
K R Vijaya, Sreekumaran Thampi, KPAC Lalitha, Vidhubala, Seema, Ambika, Menaka, Jalaja, T R Omana, Usharani, Thiagarajan, Balachandramenon were among those felicitated at the function. MLAs V S Sivakumar and O Rajagopal and Mayor V K Prasanth were present.