Kollywood Kisnan - 8

As a 'haanarable' member of Mylapore Thiruchabai, Kollywood Kisnan will fail in his duties if there's no write up of the epic 'Gnana Oli' on this auspicious 'Good Governance' day.

This is one movie that does its annual rounds on Tamizh Tollaikaatchi every Christmas. While the songs have made it to the Xmas Oliyum Oliyum playlist every year since 1973, the movie is played every year on Christmas Day on Jaya movies, Jaya max, Murasu, Sun Life and so on. Such is the power of the performances of Lawrenceee and Anthony played by Major and Nadigar T respectively.

This movie has tremendous repeat value because it doesn't have the usual over-thadavaging, mega lip pursing Nadigar T and K.R.Vijaya type 'ennanngaa' heroines. It has this Father-daughter paasam between Nadigar T and Saradha, friendship, kaamedy, betrayal, emosion and all Navarasams portrayed by Major, Nadigar T, VKR, Manorama.

The Tamizh makkals, particularly the elitist Madras gumbals that goes gaga over the 2nd word in the 4th para of Rangan's review of Kamalagassan's Englees have failed to acknowledge the greatness of Nadigar T's English. Here's the greatest example of Nadigar T's greatest accent in this greatest scene.

Major comes to ask for Saradha's daughter's hand for his son. Major (Inspector Lawrenceee) is after Nadigar T who escaped as convict Antony and is now 'Kodeeswarar' Arun. Major wants to take Arun's finger prints and thus prove he indeed is 'pazhaya' friend turned foe Antony. Sarada (Arun/ Antony's daughter) brings kaappi and serves everyone. Nadigar T happy-a has kaappi. The director puts his touch using close-up shots of Major having kaappi to indicate to the audience that something dramatic is going to happen.

Major finishes kaappi, quietly takes the tumbler puts in his pocket and leaves. As he says tata bye bye Nadigar T asks...

Nadigar T - "Inspector, Mattravargal seidhaal adhu periya Kutram. Adhaye neengal seidhal adhu gnabaga maradhi illaya?"
Major - "What do you mean?"
Nadigar T - "I mean the silvah tumblah"

Kindly note the twirl in the tongueh of the silvah of the tumblah. Wonder if any actor in India has / had this natural accent. Watch the scene here

 There are plenty of other examples of Nadigar T's Englees the best one (only after Silvah Tumblah) being "Lawrenceeee is a combination of a cobrah and a wounded Tiger". The many expressions of Nadigar T in this yet another epic scene is captured here as a collage.

I hope these channels follow it up with the telecast of the other two in this Nadigar T-P.Madhavan 'epic' trilogy - Gauravam and Thanga-p-padakkam.  I demand a belated National award (if not an Aascar avarrdu) for Nadigar T for Gnana Oli. He certainly deserves one. Don't youh agreeh folkhs?

Kollywood Kisnan - 7

Dance Master Raghuram celebrated his 50th year in the film industry as a dancer/ choreographer, last year. He had assisted dance master A.K.Chopra in his initial years before moving on to become an independent dance choreographer for films.

 He had acted as Balram Naidu's assistant in Dasavatharam and also appeared in one of the shooting scenes in Avvai Shanmugi .A lot of film choreographers start as background dancers, become assistant choreographers and then become full-fledged dance directors. In the music videos of the 90s and 2000s you'll still be able to spot popular dance masters of Kollywood, Shridhar, Johny, Dinesh, Noble etc.

Here's an old song featuring the Late E.V.Saroja with Raghuram master as a teenager. He comes in the beginning and also at 2.00 

Here's Raghuram master as Lord Murugar in the famous 'Muthai-Tharu Pathi Thiru Nagai' from Arunagirinathar

Raghuram Master passed away last month after a brief illness. May his soul rest in peace.

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Doctor 's payyan , doctor. A Lawyer's ponnu may , may not become a lawyer.. a vaadhyar's pillai is a makku .. An actor's ponnu / payyan most often becomes an actor or ends up being a director/ producer / cinematographer / costume designer etc. 

In Kollywood we have three generations of actors viz. Sivaji-Prabhu-Vikram Prabhu, Muthuraman-Karthik-Gautham Karthik etc.

This Kapoor family in Bollywood is termed as the first family of Indian cinema. Prithviraj Kapoor, his sons Raj kapoor, Shashi, Shammi kapoor, their sons Randhir, Rishi, 'Bombay dyeing' Kapoor, Chintu, Chikki-mukki Kapoors and the fourth generation Kapoors of Ranbir, Kareena-Karisma Kapoors are all actors / directors/ producers. 

But you know , even before the fourth generation (Karishma) Kapoor made her debut in '91, in namma Kollywood we had a fourth generation actress who made her debut in 1990?

Aishwarya Bhaskar has this privilege of being the fourth generation actor in Kollywood. She made her debut in '90. Her mother is the famous Lakshmi who won the best actress National award for Sila nerangaLil sila manidargal. Lakshmi's mother Rukmini acted in a lot of pazhaya movies including Sri Valli where she played the title role. Watch a clip from the movie here.

Rukmini's mother was Nungambakkam Janaki who was a dancer in Tamil films. Do read the article about her here. If you have a video clip of hers, do share it in the comments space.

As Indian cinema celebrates its 100th year, if any of your Amit friends try and put pult talking about Bachchan / Kapoor / Khan being the first family of Indian cinema etc. you put double pult and show them this post I say! Kollywood Kisnan is proud to say the first family of Indian cinema is from namma Kollywood.

Edited to add on 7th May '13

Sarang tweeted to say the first family of Indian cinema could be from Bollywood. Not Kapoors, Khans.. it's the Kajol family. Kajol's mom Tanuja's mother was popular actress Shobhna Samarth . Shobhna Samarth's mother Rattan Bai made her debut in 1933 has acted in 12 films. Though Kajol's debut was in '92 few years after Aishwarya (Lakshmi's daughter) made her debut, her cousin Mohnish Behl (Shobhna Samarth's daughter Nutan's son) made his debut in 1983 making him the fourth generation actor in Indian cinema.

Thank you Sarang for the tweet and the link. So namma Lakshmi, Aishwarya and family go back to being the first family of Kollywood. Will come back and update this post whenever Aishwarya's daughter makes her debut.

Kollywood Kisnan - 5

People inherit looks,nalla pazhakka vazhakkam from parents. Kisnan has inherited the miga nalla pazhakkam of watching background dancers in dance sequences in Kollywood, from Amma who has this good habit of saying "ayyo paavam these dancers". Several gems have been unearthed watching these background dancers. One such is 'Thennagathu Madonna' , namma C.I.D Sagundala. You can spot her as a background dancer in a lot of song sequences in Black & white Tamizh films. 

Kollywood Kisnan was anyway planning to write a post on the greatness of C.I.D Sagundala as a background dancer when he spotted a lesser known (as a ) background dancer in a very popular song.  Kollywood Kisnan must've seen this song a million times on Oliyum Oliyum ...

...but not once did he associate this lead dancer's face with a famous character actor. May be because Kollywood Kisnan got very emotional whenever he saw Nadigar T saying "Ammbbaaa Manjal Kungumathoda nee neeeedooodi vazhanum..." and overwhelmed with the "kekekekeke" laughter of the dancers, he missed this noticing this.

The lead dancer of this song.. 

is the Late Sukumari who passed away recently. This information is thanks to Markandayen Sivakumar Saar who also mentions she is the first cousin of Travancore sisters Lalitha-Padmini-Ragini.

Sukumar married the director of 'Paasa malar' and other 'Pa' varisai movies, Bhim Singh.

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Kollywood Kisnan should rechristen himself 'Chaild Aartiste' tracker since he loves to track all the Koyanda natchatrams of Kollywood.

Adu ennavo terila enna maayamo terila all Koyanda natchatrams in Kollywood seem to have made multiple appearances in a million Murugan movies. May be because Lord Murugan is a Koyanda natchatram himself.

In one of the several rerepeats of one Murugan movie on Murasu TV, Kollywood Kisnan spotted Master Sridhar as a Teenage Murugan uttering the same 'Om enum taaraga mandiram...' type dialaak in the same Tuesday DD drama type style.

In the same movie was yet another Koyanda natchatram - one cute looking boy who looked very very familiar. Kisnan put research and found it was Master Raghu. The Ph.d level research showed Master Raghu...

.. is none other than actor Karan who has been making a come back even before his debut in Nammavar. Once a year he puts mega hard work , chooses right script and acts in a movie like Kokki, Karuppasami Kutthagaidaarar, Thee nagar, which bombs at the box office. Paavam. He had a release even last week. It was a movie called Kandha which one got to know after reading a review in a Tamil magazine.

Sometimes you wish such actors had remained Koyanda Natchatrams only. edukku valarndu kashtappad(uth)anum ipdi?

Kollywood Kisnan - 3

You know our Nadigar T Sivaji Saar is the God of nadipps no? We've heard from our Malarum Ninaivugal days on how 7 am shooting means he'd be there at 6.30 am sharp with makeup and costume. Also how he'd never step out of the shooting floor even when he is not part of a particular shot and that he would get out of the floor only during lunch / tea breaks.

Nadigar T is also known to know not just his dialogues by heart, but also others which our Markandeyan Sivakumar Sir also follows.

But this one particular scene caught Kollywood Kisnan's eye. In Kandhan Karunai, based on Lord Muruga, Markandeyan Sivakumar Sir who plays the title role plays a second fiddle to Veera Vaahu played by our own Chevalier Nadigar T. Here, in the scene below Nadigar T lists out the varadatchanai Devayani should bring when she gets married to Murugar. (01:44 onwards). It's obvious he's reading out from the paper in front of him. You can see a similar reading from paper in this song from Bale Pandiya (02:58 onwards) which is full of swaram. In this Kandhan Karunai scene wonder if director APN Anna forgot to send that particular page of the dialaak paper to Annai illam the previous evening 'coz when the sequence continues with Nadigar T talking about Murugar it is all properly magg adichyfed.

Kollywood Kisnan - 2

Actress Siridevi tweeted two days ago about her debut as a child artiste in Kandhan Karunai

Kollywood Kisnan realized the song she tweeted featured the one and only Master Sridhar , one of the super duper chaaild artistes of Kollywood (the other super dupers being Daisy Irani, Master Sekar and Paploo a.k.a Babloo a.k.a Prithviraj). Check out the song Siridevi tweeted.

Kollywood Kisnan put a little research on Siridevi and her films on wiki which does mention Kandhan Karunai. More Ph.d level research followed on Kandhan Karunai whose credits did not have 'Baby Sridevi'

The 'Baby Selvi' mentioned in the credits is this kid in this beautiful song

In all this, Kollywood Kisnan wonders how this Siridevi ('s PR person) tweeted about Kandhan Karunai ? The nation wants to know. Any answers?

Edited to add 

Thank you Boo (check comments section). Boo says

 Is this Sridevi from 'Arupadai veedu konda' song in Kandhan Karunai?

Kollywood Kisnan - 1

On the happy occasion of the blog's anniversary, Kollywood Kisnan* puts entry on the blog with a new series with Arivu poorvamaana trivia , questions, observations on Kollywood that may come in handy for all those wanting to participate in NeengaLum vellalaam Oru Kodi in the coming seasons. Even if you are not, do remember Knowledge is Wealthu . 

Some of Kollywood Kisnan 's  "interesting trivia" , "even more interesting nuggets" , vetti questions, vettier observations posted here will be sourced (seri seri copied) from Kumudam , Ananda Vigadan & nalla ullangaL on twitter.

Here's the first in the series. 

In the varisai of lesser known / acknowledged artistes like Ennatha Kannaiya, Kallappetti Singaram, is late IdichapuLi Selvaraj. 

Kollywood Kisnan is happy to share the trivia that IdichapuLi Selvaraj is the older brother of the one and only Paandu . Ofcourse who doesn't know Pandu from epic movies like Ezhaiyin Sirippil (yappa yappa Ayyappa song) , Pokkiri (lift repair man) and ads like Center Fresh and Mirinda .

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* Thank you LS for helping Kisnan put entry on the blog. Any name resemblance to Kavithayala Kisnan is purely coincidental and unintentional. Cigarette smoking causes cancer. It causes death.