“Chocolate Krishna has completed 850 shows and marching towards 1,000. That definitely is a highlight in my career,” said Mohan, asked to talk about memorable moments, crazy or otherwise, in his long career as a stage artiste.
It is an achievement yes, but something with an emotional connect, an enriching experience? “Oh yes, theatre has taken me to places, which I didn’t know existed on the world map,” laughs Mohan. He is referring, in particular, to the trip Crazy Creations made to Seychelles. “I wondered whether there was going to be any audience but was stunned to find a houseful of Tamil speaking viewers, about 2,000,” he says.
The densely wooded island atmosphere unnerved him but he soldiered on.
“It was raining heavily and I expected snakes, actually an Anaconda, and scorpions to crawl out. My fears were allayed by the locals, who said that Seychelles was a part of Sanjivi Hill that Anjaneya carried to revive Rama. ‘A bit of it fell here and so you won’t find any venomous insects or creatures here,’ they assured me. Believe me, I didn’t come across even a cockroach,” he describes the experience.
Performing at the amphi-theatre in Muscat was a thrilling moment for him. “It is basically a stage for music — where the likes of Rahman and Ilaiyaraja have performed.
To stand there and present my plays — ‘Meesai Analum Manaivi’ and ‘Google Gadothkajan’ — to about 4,000 people was an honour,” he says. The most poignant moment, however, was when he was honoured by the Maryland Indian community during his recent visit to the U.S. “It came as a complete surprise. On behalf of the community, the Governor presented a citation hailing me for my service spanning over three decades to the field of fine arts. It brought tears to my eyes,” he recalls.
“And I’m lucky to have a team, which is my second joint-family,” he guffaws. “But for them all this would not be possible,” he says.
An unexpected cameo
Conveying Women’s Day greetings to this writer, he says the occasion brings to mind an incident. And he narrates: “‘Marriage Made In Saloon’ was being staged and it was time for the curtain to go up. But my wife in the play did not turn up. She was caught in a traffic jam. I asked the wife of a friend, regular viewer at my shows, to substitute. She obliged but I was in a fix. My friend, a six-footer, whom we call Schwarzenegger, was sitting in the front row staring straight into my eyes. I certainly couldn’t address his wife as casually as I would mine. I decided to be a respectful and addressed her as Neenga, Vaanga, etc . The audience, unaware of my predicament, loved it.”
