 A Hollywood man in Tamil cinema
"You must make a film on Tyagaraja on the banks of the Kaveri," had been almost the last words his father M A Srinivasan, ICS, a man who lived to be 101, playing golf until he was 95, spoke to M A Parthasarathy, film producer and director and S S Vasan's right hand man more than 50 years ago.
Parthasarathy never did make that film on Tyagaraja, not yet anyway, but he has had the most wonderful life imaginable, making films, rubbing shoulders with the great, promoting the cause of wildlife and environmental awareness, all over the world.
Now at a sprightly 80, the pioneering cinema expert of Madras who learnt his trade from such greats as Robert Wise, Jean Renoir and Akira Kurosawa, is still able to keep an audience enthralled with his razor-sharp memory, his sense of humour and his deep empathy for the people he lived and worked with all those years ago.
Parthasarathy delivered the 50th lecture in the South India Heritage series recently at the TAG Centre, TTK Road. He took an admiring audience on a conducted tour of the special place that was the Gemini Studios of the '30s and '40s under the stewardship of its proud owner S S Vasan. The young man had come into cinema quite by accident while studying in USA, his bureaucrat father not wanting him to follow in his footsteps.
On a visit to Hollywood, he found that the movie moguls were reluctant to open their doors to a student of cinema who wished to catch a glimpse of their world. He had the audacity to get up and disagree with the French filmmaker Jean Renoir when he made some inaccurate observations about India in a lecture. Robert Wise gave him his visiting card and invited him to call on him at his studio when Parthasarathy commented that Hollywood seemed to be afraid of a young, curious Indian. His impulsive acceptance of that invitation led to his becoming a full time assistant of the famous director whose oeuvre included the all-time classic 'Sound of Music'.
Parthasarathy's work with Jean Renoir on the film 'The River' included directing the music for the film, which was hundred per cent south Indian, something unheard of, and actually unheard in the West. It won him many awards all over the world.
MAP's lecture was rich in detail and anecdotes, and covered many personalities including Dilip Kumar, Gemini Ganesan, Sivaji Ganesan, Kottamangalam Subbu, A K Sekhar, Rajaji, Devdas Gandhi, Rex Harrison and the most interesting of them all, Zippy.
Zippy was that charming chimpanzee that co-starred with Dilip Kumar in the Gemini film 'Insaniyat'. MAP brought him from New York and they became great friends. He was a clever ape, a great showman who endeared himself to everyone in Gemini Studios. He was so intelligent that he would refuse to act out his director's instructions unless he knew from the camera's light that it was on. MAP would test him out and every time the result was the
same. The chimp simply would not budge unless he was on celluloid!
It was an emotional moment when the movie was completed and the chimp was to go home. By some instinct Zippy knew that it was a time for farewells. He sat and moped for a while on the floor of the studio and then walked around the ramp, stroking every worker there on the cheek and sadly bade goodbye to each of them.
Another poignant moment MAP related was his last visit to Vasan, who, ailing and isolated from visitors, called for his young protege. "Please take over Gemini. It's all yours," he told Parthasarathy, knowing his days were numbered. MAP demurred, saying that the property belonged to Vasan's family and that he was going back to his own in Bangalore. "He wept and I wept, and nothing much was said. He treated me like a son, and it was one of my saddest moments," MAP related.
To recall everything MAP said in his lecture, it will take a small book. It was one of the most memorable speeches I have heard in a long while - enriching, entertaining, ennobling.
V Ramnarayan
vramnarayan@gmail.com
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