Ambareesh, the popular Kannada actor who died in Bengaluru at the age of 66, may have appeared only in a few Malayalam films, but in one of them, he got a stellar role and he delivered. That film, Gaanam , was directed by Sreekumaran Thampi.
It was released in 1982 and though the film did not do well commercially, it had received critical acclaim. Gaanam also won that year’s State award for the best film with popular appeal and aesthetic value.
The prolific Sreekumaran Thampi believes it is his finest film till date.
“I had wanted to make Gaanam for a long time and it could have been the first south Indian film based on classical music, as I had announced it long before Sankarabharanam ,” he told The Hindu on Sunday. “But it got delayed because of several reasons.”
His first choice to play the hero of Gaanam , a musician from a lower caste who falls in love with a Brahmin woman, wasn not Ambareesh. “Soman was supposed to do that role, but when Itha Ivide Vare became a hit, its success went to his head and that caused problems on the sets of another film I was producing at the time,” he said. “So I decided not to work with him in the future.”
While on his way to the Mookambika temple one day, Thampi happened to watch a Kannada movie titled Ranganayaki in Mangaluru.
“I was impressed by the young actor who played as the assistant to the popular actress,” he recalled. “That was the first time I was watching Ambareesh and I called up the film’s director, S.R. Puttanna Kangal, a friend of mine.”
Emerging star
Thampi had already signed up Lakshmi for Gaanam , after Sheela backed out following her marriage.
“Lakshmi told me that Ambareesh was emerging as a big star in Kannada,” he said.
“I found that he was not just a good actor but a fine human being as well.”
When Gaanam ended up causing a huge financial loss to Thampi, who had also produced the film besides writing its screenplay and the lyrics for its chart-topping songs, Ambareesh offered him a Kannada film. But Onde Raktha also proved a losing proposition.
Lost money
“I lost money on Gaanam because I did not cut corners when I made it,” he said. “When you make an offbeat film, you do it on a small budget, but I didn’t want to compromise on quality.”
