I was listening to BBC's program about writing called The Word and the author who was hosting the program asked the listeners to write about their parents. It got me thinking and I am planning to write a small blog entry about my grandparents and my parents.
Padma Shree M.K. Radha
My Grandfather M.K.Radha (20th November 1910 - 29th August 1985) was a famous and renowned tamil cinema actor. He was born in Chennai and took up acting in Tamil Stage at the early age of 7. He was tutiored by my great grandfather Kandasamy Mudaliar a famous drama teacher at that time. His career spanned for almost 25 years in Tamil drama as a lead actor during India´s pre-independence days and he was a popular social hero in various patriotic dramas.
Some of the featured movies with my grandfather are
1. Sathi Leelavathi - 1936
2. Chandralekha - 1948 - Review of this movie by New York Times
3. Apoorva Sagodharargal - 1949
4. Paasavalai
5. Kamban
He received the Padmashree Award for Arts in 1972 from the then President of India V.V.Giri.
My memory of him
I remember him of being very loving, soft-spoken and well respected individual. My dad had a very good relationship with him. I spent a lot of time with him and my grandmother. I enjoyed his company. I am not very sure how old I was but I was watching the movie Paasavalai featuring my grandfather and in the movie he looses his eye sight and I got so upset that I made us leave the theatre right away to go and see my grandfather and make sure that he was ok inspite of my mom repeatedly telling me that he was ok. I really loved my grandfather. I remeber his warm smile and friendly persona, he was very likable. We used to get his fans in our house (late 1970s, early '80s) when he visited, although he had not done a movie for 25 years!The 3 pictures are some of the archives of my grandfather with the late M.G.Ramachandran, renowned actor and the most popular Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. My grandfather was his mentor.
