Dark, small frame, simple causal clothes, but very intense almost staring eyes - S. Satyendra might scare away some people, until they exchange a few words with him, see him smile and realise that he is a friendly soul. French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian! Want to learn the language or get something translated? No Problem! Satyendra is there to help you. He learnt French at the Alliance Franchise in Bangalore and German at Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai, for about eight years and has been teaching and translating from and into these languages for several years. But during the years he has devised his own unique technique, that given a linguaphone cassette and a dictionary/book, he can teach any European language, or any language written in the Roman script. He only needs a few hours before a tuition session to prepare. He can also translate most of these languages or at least give a gist of the matter, if not verbatim. It brings him sufficient income and he works at his own terms and never between 6-9 p.m., which is set aside for cultural activities, be it dance, music or theatre programme or an art exhibition. He teaches even at 10 at night or 5 early morning for professionals like doctors, who cannot find any other free time.

But cinema has been his first love ever since he was a boy and he claims to have seen about 3000 classics. His mother tongue is Telugu, but having been born and brought up in Bangalore, he obtained a post graduate degree in Kannada and also Philosophy. He can also read and speak Tamil, read, write and speak Hindi. He was busy in the amateur theatre in Bangalore since 1978 and has acted, besides others, in a few plays of B. V. Karanth and one by Girish Karnad. He also acted in the English play 'Our Town' by Thornton Wilder. One of the first to appear in Kannada TV plays, his first film was 'Grahana' by Nagabarana in Kannada with a major role as an untouchable; besides winning several international awards, this art film was also a commercial success. G.V. Iyer's 'Rishyasringa' directed by V.R.K. Prasad followed this.

Satyendra came to Chennai in 1982 with the aim to act in films and out of 18 Tamil films his first in that language was 'Ezhavathu Manithan, with one of the two major roles along with Raghuvaran. His role as a mad man won him acclaim; the film went on to win the national award and completed100 days at Safire theatre. Perhaps it is his appearance that seems to always bring him such character roles, which other image-conscious actors might not want to accept. He donned the lead role as a painter in a children's film 'Ariraro'. He has acted in about 40 films in 6 languages, including 8 Malayalam films, many of which won several awards at national and international levels. He proudly recalls his acting in the Hindi film 'Giddh with Nana Patekar, Smita Patil and Om puri.

His most memorable and well-known role was as a dead body in the 17-minute documentary 'Knock Out' by Lenin, in which Satyendra put all his best; the documentary went on to win about 6 international awards and had around 700 screenings. Another memorable documentary was the American production 'Snakebite' by Romulus Whitaker, a mixed Tamil-English version. He also did the main role in the production by the students from the German Film Institute of Dusseldorf "Die Reise den Schatten' (Journey of the Shadows). He was the assistant director of a Danish documentary on the 'History of Woodlands Hotels' and a French documentary on a particular Muslim village 80 km from Bangalore, where everyone was believed to be possessed by evil spirits. He also helped German and American scholars in their film on puppetry and marionettes with extensive research in remote Karnataka and Andhra villages.

A literature buff since young, he reads a lot and has also written several articles in English and Kannada and has been a film journalist in Kannada. Not being too well versed in the ways of the film world, he could not make a living in it. He has been too meticulous about any role, however small, and while some directors appreciated it, many did not like it. He never wears make-up either. What if he cannot get chances in films? He has his languages, his cultural activities, his films and above all his friends to keep him happy.

Lakshmi Venkatraman

More Articles