Meet Mr. Versatile (original) (raw)

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. His interest in acting was nurtured in Kannada theatre where he was in the company of veterans like Karnad and Karanth. But it was Knock Out , a short film by Lenin, in which he appeared as a corpse for 12 minutes, that made people sit up and take notice of him. His performance in Andaadi, a Tamil film on child sexual harassment, received much appreciation. He played the lead role in the German film Die Reise der Schatten and Romulus Whitaker's American production Snakebite . In 1984, he acted with Nana Patekar in the Hindi film Giddh . Sathyendra has also worked as assistant director for a Danish and an American film, besides translating and dubbing a French film. Twenty-two years after seeing Ezhavathu Manithan, director Thyagarajan invited Sathyendra for a role in his serial Anandam . Vaishali, Chidambara Rahasiyam and En Thozhi En Kaadali En Manaivi were the other serials in which Sathyendra had good roles. He has played the lead roles in two telefilms adapted from stories by two renowned writers, Jayakanthan ("Naan Irukkiren") and R. K. Narayan ("Blind Dog"). From where does he derive the inspiration to play such diverse roles? "I am a keen observer of people and situations, which give me ideas," he says.LAKSHMI VENKATRAMAN

Published - August 22, 2006 12:00 am IST