“A movie outing should be akin to a wedding feast, where all family members turn up and enjoy the food,” says Madhampatty Rangaraj. It is not surprising he uses the food metaphor as Rangaraj is a scion of the famous caterers Madhampatty Thangavelu Hospitality Private Limited. Four hundred weddings and 20 lakh people is what they cater to annually. Now Rangaraj tries out a new recipe - that of acting. He speaks of his movie debut MehandiCircus: “At weddings, we ensure that the menu has food that suits everyone's taste. For the elderly people, the dishes are cooked in less oil and for the young there is piping hot biriyani. I want my films to have the same appeal, where the entire family can enjoy the experience.”
Mehandi Circus directed by Saravana Rajendran, has Madhampatty Rangaraj and Shweta Tripathi in the lead. It is a love story of a music shop owner and a circus performer. “The film is produced by K.E. Gnanavel Raja of Studio Green who is a family friend.”
Rangaraj describes it as a 1990s film, “A love story of a Tamil payyan and Hindi ponnu . The film recreated a lost era. I watched the film with the audience in theatres and they said I reminded them of the boy next door. The film got good ratings from the critics too,” he says as he shows me some of the ratings and reviews on his mobile phone.
The film has now entered its fourth week at the theatres. People from the film industry like actor Sivakumar and his sons Suriya and Karthi, directors Pa. Ranjith, Maari Selvaraj and Nalan Kumaraswamy gave him a positive feedback.
In the film, Rangaraj appears as a 25-year-old and later as a 45-year-old. “The physical and mental transformation to look the character was the toughest part. And, dialogue delivery,” he recalls. While filming Mehandi Circus, he learnt a lot from Shweta who taught him method acting, RJ Vignesh who helped him with dialogue modulation, and actor Sunny Charles who taught him to emote with his eyes. Rangaraj can’t seem to help going back to food to explain his thoughts “What matters is dedication and interest. When I started out in the catering business, I didn't even know how to make coffee. But, I took the effort to learn. Now, I can whip up a full-course for a crowd of 5000. One has to learn the craft before taking the plunge.” He says he feels confident after his acting experience. “Cinema has phenomenal reach. I want to become well-known and use the celebrity status to take my catering business to the next level.”
- My father, Thangavelu, came from Palakkad to Madhampatty in search of a livelihood. He sold vegetables and worked at lathe units. Gradually he started catering.
- I joined the business in 2002. Along with my brother and cousins, we streamlined operations, and made it more corporate in form. We catered for celebrity weddings.
- We are known to handle big crowds. We train our staff accordingly and clearly define their responsibilities. We recently served idli, idiappam, kothu parotta, thayir saadam, mini jalebis and filter coffee at director Rajamouli's son’s wedding in Hyderabad to a 4,000-plus crowd.
- We discourage food wastage, have already made the switch to organic produce and replaced plastic cups with stainless steel tumblers and edible corn cups. We use healthier and traditional ingredients such as panangkarupatti and coconut sugar, millets and cold pressed oils.
- We also serve 20,000 South Indian breakfasts, lunches and dinners every day to corporate companies in Coimbatore. Madhampatty Fresh Food outlets is our latest addition. We have opened one at Coimbatore Airport and at Sri Krishna College serving all three meals. We plan to have more. A low calorie menu will be the highlight.
To build his acting skills, Rangaraj will study acting at the International Acting Institute in Aurovile. “I want to strike a balance where I do one film every year and also run my catering business. I will keep aside Chitirai , Aadi , Purattasi and Margazhi , the off season months for films. I have also timed the acting course during the Aadi month when there are no weddings,” he points out. Rangaraj relies on a 12-member panel to choose his movie scripts. It is made up of family and friends from all age groups.
“They pick the film as an audience. If they like it, I say ‘yes’. I want to experiment with varied roles. Play historic characters like Marudhupandi or even a cop,” he says.
He remembers watching film shoots at Madhampatty. “ Chinna Thambi Periya Thambi with Satyaraj, Prabhu and Nadia was shot here. Also, another Satyaraj film called Thaai Naadu was shot there. Films started from Coimbatore with the Pakshiraaja Studios. May be, I will do Coimbatore-based films to bring the spotlight back on the city.”
Rangaraj doesn’t think acting is that very different from preparing for a wedding feast. “It is hard, requires team work, has to have attention to detail and of course, sleepless nights...,” he laughs
