White is the colour associated with Associated Pictures’ T.E. Vasudevan, pioneering film industrialist. The spotless white shirt and mundu he always wore was also a symbol of the values he steadfastly held, albeit obstinately.
The bespectacled khadi-clad, clean-shaven and punctuality-driven colossus of the Malayalam cinema industry stuck to his views, regardless of what anyone thought. He was paymaster to the likes of K.S. Sethumadhavan, P. Bhaskaran, the famed Travancore sisters, Sathyan to Mammootty, Sheela to Shobhana, Gemini Ganesan, Murasoli Maran, who penned his only Tamil production, Yengal Selvi , and scores of talented artistes and technicians.
Making ‘pictures’ (he used only the word, ‘pictures’, hardly ever ‘films’ or ‘movies’, in conversations) was his vocation. Period. Filmdom’s many fringe benefits and a loud lifestyle were anathema to Vasudevan. His family remained just like any other ordinary family. His wife, Radha, and daughter, Mani (Valsala), were always the perfect hosts, but there were no ‘cinematic’ trappings.
Vasudevan’s memory remained intact late into his nineties, nearly till the end, narrating facts and figures with a precision one finds only in people leading disciplined lives.
Vasudevan’s first production was a tribute to his mother, aptly named Amma in 1950, in which the young Aranmula Ponnamma donned the role of Amma (mother). His last movie, Kaalam Maari, Katha Maari , starring Mammootty and Shobhana, was produced in 1987. Like many of his films, this also had his story, under the pen name, Devan V. And like the title of the film, times had changed.
He told this author in an interview that he stopped making movies after that because the producer’s role had been reduced solely to that of a financier. He lamented that producing films was no longer a vocation.
After distributing and making a few stupendous hits under his banners, Associated Productions, Jaimaruthi Productions and Jai Jaya Combines, he realised that only low budget films were feasible in a small territory like Kerala because even super hits had not earned him a decent profit.
Huge profits in fact scared him. Once, a movie was doing too well (by his standards), he sold the rights immediately. “I was relieved after that,” he had said with a smile.
The story is the king, and good songs the key, he believed. His favourite song was ‘Swapnangal…’ in Kavyamela . His movies had not only semi-classical numbers, but those that the masses could savour like ‘Kaathu sookshichoru kasthuri mambazham’ from Nayaru Pidicha Pulivaalu .
It is sad that nearly half the number of films he made do not exist any more. He had sad memories of one such incident. Vauhini Studios asked him to take away the reels of a film as soon as possible as they feared it would cause a fire. The silver nitrate in negatives was a fire hazard. He himself had to burn it in his backyard.
After moving from Chennai to Kochi in 1983, Vasudevan turned to organisational work in Kerala with the zest that he showed in the production field. He was instrumental in forming the Producers Association with six others, to protect their interests.
On not being considered for the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, despite recommendations from the industry, he said once: “I produced movies for myself; it gave me immense personal satisfaction and financial gain, so why should I be given any award?”
He helped document Malayalam cinema meticulously in his eighties. For five years, he researched and wrote the history of Malayalam cinema, coming to the Film Chamber every day, punctually. He even refused to pen his memoirs, however much he was persuaded, saying that this history represents his stint in the field too and there was no need for another one. But the Kerala Chalachitra Parishat brought it out as a CD instead. That the book was not printed pained him.
The gentleman in him always took the upper hand. “Integrity has been my only capital, which helped me stay so long in the industry,” he would say. Else how could a stenographer with the Cochin State Power and Light Corporation who half heartedly entered the film exhibition scene in 1938, stay on for 76 long years, pioneering ventures, through thick and thin and live only by cinema, making, distributing and earning royalty from channels?
His life is his memoir.
Awards
* T. E. Vasudevan was conferred the first J.C. Daniel Award in 1993 by the Kerala State Government.
* Snehaseema (1954), Nayaru Pidicha Pulivaalu (1956), Puthiya Akasam Puthiya Bhumi (1964), Kavyamela (1965) and Ezhuthatha Katha (1970) won national awards. He did not go even once to Delhi to receive the award.
Pioneer shots
1. King Kong (Fowler) acted with Dara Singh in Vasudevan’s Engal Selvi , (Tamil), scripted by Murosoli Maran in 1958.
2. Of the 108 Prem Nazir–Sheela combination movies, 20 were made under Vasudevan’s production banner.
3. The making of Nayaru Pidicha Pulivaalu was historic in that the masking technique was used to show the animals and the people in close proximity. It would be shot with the actors first and the same film would be masked partly and the animals filmed separately.
Double Climax
T.E. Vasudevan wrote the script (of Double Climax) and got it registered more than 10 years ago. He hoped to see it made into a film.
