Vidyarthikale Ithile Ithile Part 3 - Arrival of Bala Mahendran at Madras

One day while walking towards our Producer Minnal's office at Wallajah Road, Triplicane, a tall lean man approached me. When he came near I recognized him, it was Bala Mahendran with out his French beard. I had known him at the Institute as he was my senior by one year and was also  the batch mate of John Abraham and Azad. During the Institute days he had a different look with  receding hair and a French beard  and had not started wearing his trade mark cap. He was mostly  found in the company of foreign students since he was a native  of Ceylon. Even though most of the time he spoke in English, since his name was Bala Mahendran I guessed that he must be knowing Tamil and I used to speak to him in Tamil when ever I met  him on a few  occasions. He was a reclusive person and had only a few friends mostly foreigners and some South Indians at the Institute. His peers at the Institute told me that he was such a romantic person that even when he visited Budhawar Peth Red light  area he used to take flowers, kaajal, bras etc as gifts to his regular  girls there.

 

Bala Mahendran

A tired looking Balu was extremely  happy to see me at Wallajah Road and narrated his sad condition.  D. Gautaman, his senior at the Institute in  Direction  who was working as assistant to Director Ramu Kariat had recommended Bala Mahendran for his next colour film NELLU. Hoping that the film will start soon, Bala arrived in Madras and was staying with some distant relatives. The start of the film got delayed and with no income, his relatives were about to show him the door. He was on the look out for alternate accommodation and  had no money as Ramu Kariat had gone to Kerala for the shooting of another film. He also didn't have much friends at Madras and was roaming around. It was then he happened to see me on Wallajah road.  On learning about his pathetic condition, I offered to take him up with me for staying in our producer's flat at Mahalingapuram. At that time there was a break in our shooting schedule and all others like John, Azad etc  had left for their native places and I was living there alone and it was easy to accommodate him there.

My producer Minnal on his way to his office used to come there and   give me  money  for the day's food expenses and I used that amount to feed both of us. After a few days I had to go home for Deepavali  and Bala could not be left there as  he was not in a position to meet his daily expenses in my absence. So I decided to take him along  with me to my  home at  Maduranthakam which was 50 miles away from Madras. There he stayed for a few days with my family and then we returned to Madras together. Soon  Ramu Kariat returned from his Kerala location shooting and Bala managed to get some money and found alternate accommodation, but he still remained unemployed.

In the mean time myself and Kasturi Kurthy  had to go Poona for my Viva Voce  examinations. But a few days of the busy actress Jaya Bharathi was available and all of a sudden the shooting of a song sequence was planned on the same dates. So I had to find an alternate cameraman to do the  work  in my absence. Since Bala was from the Institute and  batch mate of John and Azad, I suggested to let Bala do the work.  John preferred some one from the Institute and he accepted Bala. Thus Bala started his career in feature films  by cranking the camera under the direction of  John Abraham for a song picturisation sequence in the film VIDYARTHIKALE ITHILE ITHILE.

The film Nellu took still longer to materialize and Bala used to visit us often as we were all from the Poona Film Institute. K.G.George who had joined Ramu Kariat also was part of our group.  In the meantime Director P.N.Menon was on the lookout for a cameraman for his B&W Malayalam film " PANIMUDAKKU " ( Strike). Bala got the break to work as an independent cameraman for a feature film.The film was to be shot in a place called Puthukkad near Trichur, Kerala. At that time Bala didn't have  an exposure meter the essential tool for any cameraman. He didn't have the money to buy one either and even if he had, he need to place an order with the Xaca company at Mount road and it will take weeks to arrive from Bombay.

Since I wasn't shooting at that time, I lent him my own exposure meter and also sent my friend Kasturi Murthy who was working with me to be his assistant for the film. After the shooting started, from the money  I obtained from the producers of that film I purchased a new Sekonic exposure meter and sent it over to Bala's location.  Kasturi Murthy later kept on associated with him for  many of Bala's films.

The film NELLU  still needed more time  to materialize, but soon  Ramu Kariat started a B&W film MAYA and gave Bala the opportunity to work with him. Ramu Kariat was the main  reason behind Bala coming to India from Ceylon.  Meanwhile he had changed his name into Balu Mahendra and is now known only by that name.

In spite of having done this much for him he had  never  shown the courtesy of inviting me inside his  home on the two or three occasions that I visited his residence at  Madras. He always met me at the gate and saw me off, never letting me in. Strange!

May be he was too much  protective or possessive   about his family !

Subrata Da's Box Lights

In the studio there was this strange looking wooden box one side of which was covered with translucent tracing paper. We were told that it was the invention of none other than the great master Cinematographer Subrato Mitra himself. It seems that when he was shooting PATHER PANJALI the West Bengal Government helped Satyajit Ray by providing some lights which turned out to be Police search lights ! Subrata Da adapted them for his movie work by bouncing the light on to white boards to soften the harshness of bright search lights. He also devised an inexpensive and ingenious soft light by fixing a number of house hold bulbs in a wooden box and covered one side with translucent tracing paper. Using that light he was able to create very soft and shadowless lighting effects. When he visited the Institute earlier ( around 1967 or so) he got two lights made for demonstration purposes.

Box Lights

We used those lights christened "DUBBA" ( Hindi word for Box) lights during our practicals and found them to be very useful for soft and naturalistic lighting effects. Bala Mahendran ( Balu Mahendra) carried the idea to Madras and got the Box lights made for his films. When he started colour film work he replaced the house hold incandescent bulbs with photo-flood lamps and used them in his films for many years. He even had an assistant appointed only for carrying his personal light to the location and back. Many in Madras thought that Box lights were Balu's invention but the fact is otherwise as seen from the photograph below!

Subrata Mitra with students

Bala Mahendran near window , Naresh Bedi( with beard)

Subrata Da had conducted the workshop at the Institute before I joined there and hence I did not have the opportunity to meet him or to attend his classes for a long time. Years later, I had the honour of meeting him when he came to Thiruvananthapuram to inaugurate the Indian Society of Cinematographers in 1995. He gave an excellent talk during the function and later interacted with the Cinematographers present. As President of the ISC, I shared the stage with him when he was conferred the Honourary Membership by eminent Film Director Shri.Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

Subrata Da, Adoor and Me

Though the Box light was very useful I found that carrying it to location and back is cumbersome. So when I started working in films at Madras, I got 4ft X3 ft wooden frames made on to which I stretched translucent thin plastic sheets ( shower curtain material) and placed them in front of lights to achieve similar soft light effect. In the later years it was replaced by white acrylic sheets, grid cloth etc.

More Lifetime Achievement Awards

Balu Mahendra receiving the Life Time Achivement award from
Producer R.B. Chowdhary

On 1, May 2008, the South Indian Cinematographers Association (SICA) in a colourful function at Chennai presented Life Time Achievement Awards to eminent personalities of the South Indian Film Industry. Amongst those who received the Awards were two of the Alumni from the Film Institute, Pune. They were Balu Mahendra and Myself!

Ramachandra Babu receiving the Life Time Achivement award from
Producer R.B. Chowdhary

My room mate and friend - K.R. Murthy

After living for some months in a lodge with some Assamese students of different college, I came to know that there was some vacancy in a room at some distance away from the Institute, Ramachandra Murthy, my class mate was staying in a garage converted room at one end of Prabhat Road with another student from the Institute (neither I nor Murthy could remember the name). Any how I found it better as I could stay with known people and communicate with each other. Moreover Murthy had an electric heater on which he some times cooked food too! The asbestos roofing was hot during day and was quite cold in the winter months and the only consolation was that it was situated at walking distance from the Institute. During that time I had my first encounter with the Winter in Poona, hailing from the warmer climate of southern part of India.

Later in the second year we both got hostel accommodation in a double room and we continued to be room mates. In our final year also we found ourselves together in the same Unit and used to assist each other in film shootings.

Murthy assisting me during my Diploma Film

Murthy became a good friend of mine as he was calm and patient by nature, a vegetarian and had no vices. His endearing nature and perfectionist habits was liked by everybody. He had a lot of interest in things mechanical and soon became a disciple of Shri. Kulkarni, our Instructor. On his spare time he joined Kulkarni Saab and can be seen repairing cameras, lenses etc. Even when Kulkarni Saab came to Chennai after retirement, Murthy used to visit his camera maintenance workshop and repair things down there. Even some of us used to seek his help in fixing minor defects in exposure meters or still cameras.

I did my debut film while in my final year ( more of it later) and I asked Murthy whether he would like to assist me in my feature film work down in south. He agreed and was assisting me for the film being shot at Madras. During my film shooting Balu Mahendra happened to come to Madras and he met both of us there. When Balu's debut film commenced, he requested Murthy to assist him. That was the beginning of a long association with Balu which Murthy still retains. Balu wanted Murthy especially for his expertise in fixing up things. In those days at Madras, films were shot using Academy aperture (1:1.33) and Balu wanted to shoot in Widescreen (1:1.66). But Widescreen format Camera gates were not available at all. Murthy found a solution by masking the upper and bottom portions of the camera gate with very thin copper foil. But there was always a danger of the copper strips displaced especially when the magazine is allowed to run out. In that case it had to be re-fixed again. It was Murthy's job to see that the masking foil is always in proper place all the time. And Murthy became indispensable for Balu!

Murthy had also done several feature films independently as Director of Photography in Malayalam and Telugu. Some of his films are ATHITHI (Dir: K.P.Kumaran - Malayalam) SAPTHPATHI (Dir: K.Viswanath - Telugu)

He started growing a beard in the final year and keeps it up still!

He lives in Chennai and we meet occasionally whenever I visit there. Recently I met him on New Year's day 2008.

Murthy and me at SICA Conference 2007