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Meet Mr. Versatile

Did you know Sathyendra of teleserial "Anandam" fame has such diverse interests?

"Ramakrishna..." someone calls out to him and Sathyendra instantly turns to greet the stranger. He has got used to being called Ramakrishna, the character he played in the TV serial "Anandam" on Sun TV — so much has he endeared himself to viewers. Passionate about cinema and acting since his student days, he has watched as many as 13,000 films in several languages. He is equally passionate about learning languages.

Though his mother tongue is Telugu, he holds university degrees in Kannada, Drama and Philosophy and diplomas in German and French. As a student in Bangalore, he translated Kannada texts into English and wrote articles in both the languages for journals. He has also translated texts from German, French, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Hungarian and Spanish into English, as also Tamil poetry into Spanish.

Sathyendra has just returned from Ooty after shooting for Hollywood director Eric Manning for the film Maya that has an international cast. Since moving to Chennai in 1980, he has played deglamourised but significant roles in several Tamil films — Ezhavathu Manithan, Kadamai-Kanniyam-Kattuppadu, Satya and Pattukkoru Thalaivan. In 1979, he had acted in the award winning Kannada film Grahana. He also acted in G. V. Iyer's Kannada film Rishyasringar, written by Chandrasekara Kambar. He has so far acted in 60 award winning films in various languages, he says with pride. LAKSHMI VENKATRAMAN

LAKSHMI VENKATRAMAN

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