Gift of the gab
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R. Sreekandan Nair, host of ‘Nammal Thammil,’ won the Kerala State award for the best anchor/interviewer. Prema ManmadHan
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Parting shot: Sreekandan Nair concludes each show of ‘Nammal Thammil’ with his trademark ‘Goodbye.’ He has completed 568 episodes of the talk show.
“Goodbye.” Say this standing with your legs apart with both your fists together, slightly swaying and who may you be? An avid TV viewer will say, “R. Sreekandan Nair” immediately. That’s how popular his &#
8216;Goodbye’ in ‘Nammal Thammil,’ a programme of Asianet, has become.
With the State award this year for the best anchor/interviewer of Nammal Thammil, firmly in his kitty, Nair has grandiose plans to implement in the media field. He has just completed 568 episodes of ‘Nammal Thammil’ on Asianet, where women discuss how they got errant husbands to bow before them, through legal means.
He started it all 14 years ago, in 1993, with an episode on super-fast buses, in which, Nair recollects, one participant was C. Guptan, the present Travancore Dewaswom Board president. “But sadly, those early tapes of the programme are not available, though there are pictures,” says Nair, who has come a long way since then, and is now vice-president, Asianet.
The man from Melila, Kottarakkara, always had the gift of the gab. It did him good while at college and his early stint as a teacher at Kerala Varma College. During his short tenure as a journalist with the Kerala Kaumudi and in hi
s freelance days, he realised he had a way with words and he could put it to good use. Nair worked in Akasha Vani later, as a programme executive. He has to his credit, 60 radio plays.
“I was a well-known comedian in radio plays then,” he says. “I also wrote more than 1,500 ‘Kandathum kettathum’ for AIR. The radio is still a very powerful medium,” says the TV anchor who is still associated with radio in a big way.
‘Sreekandan Nair show’
From 2000, Nair has been presenting the ‘Sreekandan Nair show’ on Asianet Radio for Gulf Malayalis, Monday through Friday. Current affairs, humorous incidents, music and a phone in session mark these shows. Sreekandan Nair’s next big thing is a dream project on the radio.
“Ninety percent of Malayali workers in the Gulf do not have their families with them and they have umpteen problems with no one to turn to. I am planning a programme where we can help them, where we can offer services to the hapless Gulf Malayalis. The radio is very powerful medium in areas where people live in temporary housing.”
Of his more than 500 episodes of ‘Nammal Thammil,’ he has several unforgettable episodes, like the one with the late E.K. Nayanar.
“Once, with E.K. Nayanar, when I said the time was up, he got angry and scolded me. I could have edited that out, but I did not. Everyone saw it and the rating went up! On another occasion, we did an episode about goondaism in Kochi, which the viewers liked a lot. It was dangerous, but we did it.
“People often ask me why don’t you have episodes that deal with serious issues like say, encroachment. But the truth is that those kinds of subjects have no entertainment value and majority of the people don’t like it. So our subjects are what family audiences like,” explains Nair.
There was a one-year gap sometime in 2002, when ‘Nammal Thammil’ was abruptly stopped. Nair says it was because the then Asianet chairman Regi Nair suggested it, while it was at its peak, so that people would miss it.
“Right enough, the ratings doubled when we started it again sometime in 2003. Actually, I don’t move very fast. The ‘Nammal Thammil’ mannerisms were created by me,” he divulges as a parting shot!
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