Remembering the Mylaporean in Bollywood

Right from the early years, there has been an endless stream of heroines who migrated from Tamil to Hindi cinema, but very few heroes. Among those stood out was Ranjan, who acted in more than 50 Hindi films with heroines as famous as Madhubala. Not stopping with acting, he even wrote the story for the super hit movie Munimji, which had Dev Anand and Nalini Jaywant playing the main characters.

But then, Ranjan, the Mylaporean, was always different. He was an avid aviator, ran a magazine, pursued PhD and even dabbled in magic.

Most of the actors in the forties came from poor backgrounds, cutting their teeth in dramas. Unlike the majority, Ranjan, born as Ramnarayan Venkataramana Sarma, came from a Mylapore family of university dons. His brother, an architect, was the brain behind many a landmark in Madras, including the centenary auditorium of the Madras University and the stately RBI office.

Ranjan, too, had set his eyes on Cambridge University after graduating from the Madras Christian College. But Adolf Hitler and the World War II that he brought about ruined his plans.

It was around this time that a talent scout spotted Ranjan during a dance programme at a collegiate festival. Ranjan was thus picked up for a talkie, MK Thyagaraja Bhagavathar’s musical hit, Ashok Kumar, but for a very minor role: he was in only a single scene without any dialogue.

Ranjan’s debut as hero was Rishyasringar. Jiten Banerjee, a director of Newtone Studio, thought he looked like a Bengali and rechristened Ramnarayan Venkataramana Sarma as Ranjan. Incidentally, very few educated people used act in those early days of the film industry; and those who did act flaunted their degrees in the credits. Thus began Ranjan BA’s career as a hero.

In mythology, Rishyasringar had the gift of bringing rain wherever he went. The film’s story was about the king of a parched land, who sends a sensuous courtesan, Maya, played by Vasundhara, to bring Rishyasringar to his country. The younger Rishyasringar was played by later day veena wizard, S Balachander. Rishyasringar was a major success, establishing Ranjan and Vasundhara (Vyjayanthimala’s mother) firmly on the ladder of fame.

Then came a film on Narada, for which Ranjan was chosen to play the role. According to mythology Narada would walk in the skies amid the clouds playing his tampura. While shooting the scene, the actor is made to walk on a wall, with sets of sky and cloud placed behind him and a studio fan imitating the cosmic wind. The camera placed on the floor would do the rest of creating an illusion of walking on thin air. During scenes that have them singing, artistes often fell off the wall sustaining injuries – but not Ranjan. He came out with flying colours.

Salivahanan was another noted film in which Ranjan played the hero and MG Ramachandran the villain. The script contained ample opportunity for them to clash, and that is precisely what they did, almost to the level of injuring each other. They did not get along ever since. A decade later, when Chinnappa Thevar wanted to make a film with MGR and planned the screenplay, the latter did not give him dates for shooting excusing himself stating that he was busy with his home production. A miffed Thevar brought Ranjan, then busy in Bollywood, on board for Neelamalai Thirudan. Ranjan’s performance in the Robin Hood like character was so outstanding that MGR came back running to Thevar with an olive branch and granted unlimited call sheets. It was this that elevated Chinnappa Thevar’s studio on a par with Gemini and AVM.

Ranjan cannot be reduced to just an actor. After Mangamma Sabadham, one of the earliest double role talkies, Ranjan went back to academics trying to do a PhD on dance styles. He ran a 24-page Tamil magazine called Natyam (costing 8 annas) in the late forties. It was then that SS Vasan reluctantly called him to the play swashbuckling personality in his latest production, Chandraleka. Ranjan’s Shashankan went on to become the unforgettable villain of the century. A generation of Tamil children was frightened into eating their meals just with the mention of Shashankan. Gemini spent millions on making the movie and equally on publicising it. Ranjan’s flashy style was noted and offers from Bombay poured in.

He moved to a quiet bungalow in Union Park, Bandra, but he was too multi-faceted to confine himself to cinema. He was a pilot who had clocked over thousand hours of flying. If that was not enough, he was even a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

But you can take a man out of Mylapore but never take Mylapore out of him. They eat differently, dress differently but the slang remains. That cannot be truer than in the case of Ranjan, whose Mylapore slang seems to have done him in. Ranjan’s films, many of them hits and others dubbed into South Indian languages, remain a faint memory in Hindi cinema.