NONE LIKE NAGESH - a tribute

One of the enduring images in my mind of the late actor Nagesh is from ‘Pacchai Vilakku’- in the song – ‘Kelvi Piranthathu anru’. He walks with a skip in his step, keeping time to the music, listening to engine driver Sivaji Ganesan singing. He is wearing a pair of jeans (in the 60 s very few people wore jeans!) a t-shirt and cap - and looks every bit the Anglo-Indian railway employee.

This is his stellar quality – he would look the part whatever he was playing. His face somehow had the anonymity which could adapt itself to any character, allowing him to play older roles even when young. He had a lean, lanky figure, with which he could do wonders, and which allowed him to dance beautifully with any kind of gyrations, even the ballet dancer’s splits, as in ‘Neer kumuzhi’ and later in ‘Kathalikka Neramillai’.
The dance segment in this video clip is from 'Kathalikka Neramillai'



If a picture had Nagesh in it, I was definitely interested in seeing it. He peaked in the 60s and 70s, and by the eighties he had been overtaken by a younger crop of comedians (jokers?). I remember seeing him, in the early 80s in our local departmental store Royal Stores, now defunct, and there was nobody around him, no one asking for an autograph, nobody even turning round to look twice. A younger me would certainly have bounded over and talked to him.

Nagesh often said that he modelled himself on Jerry Lewis, but I would say he outgrew that, and shone after he found his own niche. His first movie was ‘Thamarai kulam’, (and not ‘Server Sundaram’ as many media reports have said. It was his first movie as a hero). And for some time he was called ‘Thai’ Nagesh, after the movie ‘Thai’ in which he made a name for himself.

Sridhar was the director who brought Nagesh into the limelight with ‘Nenjil Oru Aalayam’, in which he is a ward boy. Till then Nagesh had been content to play any role – no role was too small for him. And he touched the heights with his role of wannabe–director Chellappa and his Oho productions in ‘Kathalikka Neramillai’. I know people who saw it several times (some of them up to seven times) just to enjoy his comedy. In those days (1960s ) there were no TV channels telecasting comedy sequences ad nauseum. His narration of his film script to his father (T. S. Balaiah) was something new. He could deadpan with the best of them.

His portrayal of a waiter-turned-actor in ‘Server Sundaram’, left people asking for more. His friend and mentor K.Balachander had created the role specially for him as a play, which was then made into a picture. He repeated this success as a hero with K. Balachander in ‘Ethirneechal’. The rapport between this director and actor was something special. They were simply made for one another. In the comedy 'Anubhavi Raja Anubhavi' he played the double role of a foolish city boy, and a country bumpkin – a rare feat for a comedian then. In fact, in the movie ‘Panakkara Kudumbam’ with MGR, he even played three roles - himself, his father and his grandfather!

One of the best roles he played was that of Dharumi, the impoverished poet, who is looking to win a bonanza in a poetry contest, in the mythological ‘Thiruvilayadal’. No verbal report can do justice to the interplay between him and the arrogant regal poet (Lord Siva in disguise), played by Sivaji Ganesan – in the acting, the dialogue and the body language Nagesh almost outdid Sivaji . In fact he is quoted as having said that it was Sivaji Ganesan’s magnanimity that insisted on retaining the scene as it was shot, for it was evident that Nagesh was the scene-stealer.

Another memorable role was Savadal Vaithi in ‘Thillana Mohanambal’, a semi villainous role, displaying a versatility rare in comic actors.

His one-liners were really funny, and delivered with such an expression (expressionless?) that the audience burst out laughing. The humour was always clean. One scene in ‘Neerkumizhi’ at a hospital, an old patient sighs, “There is not a single doctor I haven’t seen.” Nagesh’s comeback - “Did the doctors see you?’

In later years he played character roles, right up to ‘Dasavatharam’ last year. He acted in Rajnikant’s first movie ‘Apoorva Raagam’, parts of which were shot on the first floor of our house. The production unit borrowed some furniture from us – and one of the chairs (we still have it) was the one Nagesh sat on. For a long time we joked about never dusting that chair.

There can by no means be a comprehensive list or enumeration of this great scene stealer’s films. Only recently, about a week before his death, there were discussions online and in the media about how a current comic actor had been awarded the Padma Shri, while Nagesh had never been given one.

To many, like me, Nagesh was the king of comedy, and he will remain that. That would be his true reward, I suppose.

Links to some of his best scenes:

Server Sundaram:

Then Mazhai