“My first wife is always the stage,” proclaims Y. Gee. Mahendra, before listing out the other loves in his long and storied career – films and then television. From his stage debut in his father Y. G. Parthasarathy’s United Amateur Artistes (UAA) troupe at the age of 11 in 1961, right up to his recent weekend shows in Tiruchi, Mahendra exudes the confidence of a man born to tread the boards.
No matter how digital entertainment becomes, the live performance will always have an audience, he says. “A stage play is beautiful only when it is seen as a stage play, just like you cannot get the same effect of a live Bharatanatyam performance in a recording. Maybe Carnatic music will become more digital, because it is an audio form. But even then, why do people flock to the December season in Madras? Because they want to see the artiste face-to-face,” says Mahendra.
The serial story
Having been in show business for so long, Mahendra doesn’t mince words when it comes to summarising the state of the performing arts today. “Theatre and cinema were the two big forms of entertainment then. It was TV that came in (in the mid-1970s) and kept people at home. Today cinema is in the doldrums. You have 20 movies releasing, who knows which runs and doesn’t run? Viewers have become more choosy now, and moviemakers have it tougher, because everything is available as a digital download,” he says. “Even a Rajnikant film doesn’t run these days, so what about others?”
And yet he is quick to thank television for giving a livelihood to professional stage artistes. “But our content should improve, it’s all too melodramatic now,” says Mahendra, who can be seen in the Zee Tamizh serial Engal Veetu Penn , produced and directed by his son Harshavardhana.
“If you suggest a crime thriller, channel producers reject it and say ‘give me something that is woman-centric.’ They say there are no TRPs with crime and comedy, they want a mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law fight, the sister-in-law playing politics, plotting to poison someone – women are shown in such poor light, and yet this what they want.”
Mahendra starred in Valibam Thirumbinal , Doordarshan Chennai’s first-ever televised play, in 1975.
He has also worked in TV production, starting out with the 13-week Ambikapathy in DD.
Message in a play
As the scion of a family that has distinguished itself in both theatre and education, Y. Gee. Mahendra takes his role as dramatist seriously. “My father used to say that even in comedies, you should have a little ‘carry-home message’. Don’t make it an experience where you forget play as you walk out.”
What hamstrings the theatre scene in Tamil Nadu, he says, is the ‘All are Welcome’ board. “The sabha system is one of the biggest advantages here, but it has also proved a disadvantage at times, because people start expecting things for a nominal fee,” he says.
“UAA, Crazy Mohan and S. Ve Sekhar are the only profitable troupes in the State now, and they all deal with comedy,” he says. Of late, there’s been a revival of interest in epics like Ponnniyin Selvan , which could steer the stage back into the limelight, he feels.
Coming back to the role of the sabhas, Mahendra points out that little could be achieved without the corporate sponsors, “who have become like the mahajaras, the patrons of the arts, today.”
Mahendra has been running the Bharat Kalachar sabha in Chennai for 29 years, based purely on sponsorship. “We give a chance to about 700 artistes, out of which for only 10 concerts you get a crowd to buy the tickets. What happens to the others? We are forced to use the ‘All are Welcome’ sign for them,” he says. “Patronage and exposure are inter-related. So there’s a strange paradox, where the audience wants to pay only for the big names, but wants the smaller names to be free.” And yet, he underlines, today’s big star may have been a minor performer once.
Stage taskmaster
Calling himself a ‘Hitler on stage,’ Mahendra insists on at least 40 days of rehearsal before inaugurating a play. “I need my full script for me to work as director, because I sit on it for a week and do the corrections, additions and so on. Of course on-the-spot improvisation is always there,” he says, adding a bit sheepishly that he doesn’t write in Tamil, but gets others to put his ideas on paper for him.
He’s not a great believer in formal acting either. “To have emotion you have to work 10 steps, turn left 5 steps – I don’t believe in all that. Do you do that in life? It is so silly teaching it. It has to come naturally. ‘React according to the character’ is my system of acting,” he says.
The UAA has put up 63 productions in the 65 years of its existence, without a break.
“All the top names of the Tamil film industry have had their baptism in UAA - Cho, Nagesh, [Chief Minister] Jayalalitha, Mouli, Visu, myself, Lakshmi, her mother Rukmini, they were all trained here. Vietnam [Veedu] Sundaram was a water boy in our troupe,” he says.
Since the past four years, Mahendra has trained a troupe in Chicago through Skype, so that he can travel with just the main performers from India in time for the play.
Power of perception
Y. Gee. Mahendra has four film releases lined up this year. The surfeit of flops could finally lead to quality control, he feels, stating the example of the sleeper hits Kaaka Muttai and Pizza .
“Films don’t call for that much acting these days, because the director takes it in a different way. But they glorify violence a lot. That is one thing I don’t like,” he says. “Filmmakers today think having blood and gore is what makes it natural. They forget that in Psycho , Alfred Hitchcock never showed the knife touching the body even once in the shower scene. And you won’t find a more terrifying scene than that.”
‘My most cherished moments’
“At any time, I am a devout devotee of only one actor: Sivaji Ganesan. I don’t even consider anyone else an actor. He is my inspiration. Any time that he came to see my play and appreciated it, has always been my finest moment. And the 33 movies that I acted with him, was like going to university class. I have been very close to him. He was one of the finest rasikas – I have seen several top artistes who come to the play and because they know that they are big artistes, they won’t react much.
“But Sivaji was like a child. He has literally fallen off the seat during some of the comedy scenes in my plays.
“In the 1980 play Artham Ulla Mounangal (written by Vietnam Veedu Sundaram), we did a parody of a Doordarshan interview, using a huge set of a TV screen.
“When Sivaji came to see it at Rani Seethai Hall in Chennai, he thoroughly enjoyed the comedy and got up and started clapping. When he was in the audience, he was one of them. That’s why he used to say that only a very good rasika would be a very good actor.”
Brief biography
Yechan Gunja Mahendran was born on January 9, 1950, to Y. G. Parthasarathy, who retired as Deputy Chief Controller of Imports & Exports is a well-known senior dramatist in South India, and Rajalakshmi Parthasarathy, Padmashri awardee, and Dean and Director of Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary Group of Schools.
His wife Sudha Mahendra, daughter Madhuvanti and son Harshavardhana are also involved in the performing arts.
Debuting in K. Balachander’s 1971 film Navagraham , Y. Gee. Mahendra has acted in over 250 movies, and innumerable TV shows, besides stage plays.
