As the tall 70-year-old man walked out of the immigration section of the Muscat international airport, a worker hailing from Tamil Nadu, who was in the housekeeping section of the airport, spotted him and at once, the latter’s face lit up.
He strode along the dazzling floor that he had just cleaned, reached his icon and asked, “Sir, can you tell me the storyline of Sivaji: The Boss?” The legend smiled, patted the worker on his back and advised him to watch the movie when released, diplomatically evading the million-dollar question of that period. That was November 2005.
The late Sujatha aka Rangarajan, a great Tamil writer, who had penned the dialogues for the Rajinikanth starrer Sivaji landed in Muscat along with renowned character actor Poornam Viswanathan to receive lifetime achievement awards from the Tamil wing of the Indian Social Club in Muscat. Sujatha, in a lighter vein, shared the airport incident during his acceptance speech. Sujatha and Poornam Viswanathan formed a great pair and enlivened the Tamil drama stage.
They had an enviable chemistry. I consider it a great fortune and honour to have received from the hands of Sujatha, a glittering trophy as the first prize for a short story in the science fiction category. The contest was organised by Indian Social Club and the entries were judged by Sujatha himself. The trophy occupies a prime slot in my heart.
Inspired by his lucid writings on the basics of computers, many youngsters took to IT much before the IT revolution changed the face of India. He wrote like a robot and dabbled in every genre of writing, making his readers hang on to his every word so much so that a magazine even published an extract from his daily laundry record which included, ‘Bloodstained dhoti – 1 No.’, true to his image as a writer of suspense thrillers! When quartz watches entered the market, Sujatha had a chat with the top official of HMT Watches in Bangalore and quizzed him on HMT’s plans to enter the quartz market.
The official replied that consumers who were wedded to winding-type watches would prefer them forever. That Titan’s quartz watches stormed the market and overtook HMT is history. Sujatha mentioned this in an article underlining the need to embrace change. It is the refreshing change in style that he brought to the field of writing in Tamil that catapulted him to stardom and fame. And now, it is more than 10 years since he passed away.
Viswanathan Vaidyanathan
Email: vishyvaidya@gmail.com