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No shortcut to greatness, Sreenivasan tells children

ON REAL LIFE: Actor Sreenivasan interacting with children at a summer camp organised by the Chalachitra Academy in the capital city on Sunday. Photo: S. Mahinsha

A comedian makes you laugh right? Wrong. He does much more than that. Sometimes he also sets you thinking about life's lessons that come couched in giggles.

That is exactly what happened at an interaction between the children participating in the summer camp organised by the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy and actor Sreenivasan held here on Sunday.

From the cheers and laughter that greeted Sreenivasan as he walked into the Margi Natyagriham where the interaction was scheduled, it was clear that the children expected a `performance' from the actor. The first question made it all the more clear, "How come you have so much glamour at this age?" But Sreenivasan, it seemed, was in no mood for tomfoolery.

There is no shortcut to greatness, the actor told the children. Great things can be done only through constant effort, commitment and a firm mind. "You are approaching that age when children decide what they want to do in life. Here I am reminded of an old saying that goes thus: if you choose a job you love you won't have to work a single day in your life. As Buddha said the mind is everything. You are what you think," he said. Often people give excuses for not doing what they wanted to do in life: `I did not have enough money', `I did not get a good breakfast' ... If only a person dream will he make it in life, he said.

The foundation of art is literature and to be a good artiste is to become a good human being. A person's character will be determined by what he reads and by how much he reads, he said.

"A film is called the director's art. Is it so? Or is it a collective effort?" Sreenivasan did not hesitate even a moment in telling the girl who asked this question that he considers a film to be a director's product through and through. But then he also hastened to add that when directors with little or no experience rely excessively on others to do what they themselves should done, people will start saying that it is not the director's film.

In between, Sreenivasan took a walk down memory lane and recounted how he went to the Madras Film Chamber Institute to learn acting. "People like Ramu Karyat, P. Bhaskaran, Vincent and K.S. Sethumadhavan were doing the interviews. When they saw me enter the room they started laughing. I was not so handsome then," Sreenivasan said.

Does Sreenivasan feel that only actors who play the lead role in movies should get the awards for best actor? No, of course not, shot back the actor.

But then why does Sreenivasan always play the spoilsport to the character played by Mohanalal in many movies? This question set Sreenivasan on a lengthy answer about the complex relationship between the hero and the villain in a movie. He explained how often the villain or the negative character has to perform one step above the hero himself so that eventually the audience can be led into sympathising with the latter hoping for his final victory. "This desire of the audience for the hero to succeed, this is what sells a cinema. The movie `Udayananu Tharam' was made in this vein," he explained.

And what about fans associations that almost all stars have? "This is a very primitive phenomenon. No sane person would accept such a thing. People with no other work do such things. Some time ago when somebody asked me what I thought of fans associations I told them that when one star's movie is released the fans of his rival come and tear up the posters. When the other star's movie is released the same thing happens. So I said that fans associations are good to keep the walls of the city clean," Sreenivasan said.

G. Mahadevan

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