“Of course”
“I did not love you”
“But I did not hate you too”
The above
mentioned lines were written way back in 1999, recollecting the love and hate
relationship between me and a girl. I view Rajakumar, the actor, singer,
orator, humanist and nationalist from the same point of view. Even today, I don’t
know exactly, whether I loved him or I hated him. But I must say that I felt a
great loss when I heard of his death. Writing on the demise of Prithviraj
Kapoor, K.A.Abbas says, “It is difficult for me to write about Prithviraj
Kapoor in the past tense. He was always so alive, so vital, such an optimist that
one can’t imagine him to be dead. And to recall one’s innumerable encounters
with him is a painful process.” It is true in case of Rajakumar too.
To be honest, my
mother, how is illiterate, named me after Rajakumar. I am now retrospecting all
these things, which are nearly 30 years old. Cinema in those days was not everybady’s
cup of tea. The aristocrats alone had the opportunity of watching movies. The story
of traditional families was quite different, which considered watching movie a
crime.
Especially
religious Hindu and Muslim families never allowed their women to watch movies. It
was believed that a woman who watched movies would get her life spoiled and young
girls would go astray, imitating the gorgeous life shown on the silver screen.
My mother bore
me in the remotest village, called Telasang, in Bijapur district of Karnataka
state. Father of three young beautiful daughters, my grand pa never exposed
them to the modern, fashionable style of celluloid world. By the time my mother
was married to my father, I don’t know how? she had seen some two or three
movies of Rajakumar, one and only hero Kannada films of 1960’s. An elder sister
of my mother, my aunt, staying in Shivamoga town, might have informed my mother
about Rajakumar. She already had a male baby and who was named after
Udayakumar, another famous actor of the time, who was more popular than
Rajakumar at that time. My mother took suggestion of their sister when she bore
me and named after Rajakumar. Needless to say that we have already passed
nearly 50 years after those glorious days of Rajakumar. When I bore a child and
started searching for a good name, a three years old female baby came and whispered
a name into my ears that is ‘Rajakumar’.
Tell me what
does this Rajakumar mean to the child? What this Rajakumar is? Is it mere a
name? A symbol or an actor? The one witnessed today and forgotten tomorrow? Can
time perish the footprints of this forth standard educated boy? Who ruled
Kannada psyche for more than six decades? How did he grow so dangerously,
breaking the records in the box office?
How come he was
so unbeaten and unconquered, not only on the film world even in the history of
Kannada culture, literature and language. We got it confirmed witnessing the
meaninglessness of golden jubilee of Karnataka unification without Rajakumar.
Even though my mother named me after Rajakumar, sorry to say, I did not like his films for, when I started watching Kannada movies, the angry young man movement headed by Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish and Prabhakar was in swing.
Compared to Rajakumar’s
moral films, they had a number of fights, new music, modern dressing styles,
which easily seized my young mind. Of course, the survey of Kannada film
activities was one sided because, then I was not aware of Rajakumar’s films based
on Indian mythologies and history. I was not in the position to understand what
acting was and who a good actor was. I was rather attracted by the visual
effects of the camera, colour and modernism than the message.
It is true, when
Rajakuamr entered filmdom, Udayakumar and Kalyanakumar, were the highest paid
actors, who charged nearly one lack twenty thousand rupees for a film. They were
very popular. I read somewhere that even during his tremendous days of
popularity Rajakumar never took more than 50 thousand rupees. He grew like
anything beyond the guess of film critics. Rajakumar grew up not merely an
actor but he became a mantra, a part and parcel of every Kannadiga: he became
symbol of self respect, sacrifice, service and sincerity.
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