Remembering Sivaji on his b'day

For, the opportunity to click Sivaji Ganesan, touted to be one of India’s most expressive actors ever, created more pangs than pride for photographer Venket Ram, who was a little over 25 when it happened.

“I was freelancing at The Week and a special issue with him as the cover was planned. But my theme was to take candid and casual pictures of him as a family man, and not about him as an actor,” Venket Ram begins, as he recollects the jittery moments at Sivaji’s house before the photo shoot actually began. “My editors told me I shouldn’t move him around a lot because Sivaji sir was just recuperating from an illness then,” he says.

But Venket Ram was among the more fortunate among the photographers and Sivaji wasn’t just another actor. Recollecting with precise details, from the teak staircase on which Sivaji was captured to his conversation with Sivaji in Telugu, Venket says it was an experience he learnt a lot from. “One of the first things he did was quiz me. He heard me speak and asked me if I was a Tamilian. After I told him that I was from Andhra, he shifted over completely to Telugu, in which he was fluent. It was funny because he would switch to Tamil when he was talking to our correspondent and make it a point to converse in Telugu with me, addressing me only as Venketgaaru.” “He made conversation with the correspondent as I arranged my lighting equipment and was waiting for him.

Then he came, and when he found that I was actually waiting for him to come, he said that he too was waiting for me to call him,” Venket says, adding that his photos of Sivaji Ganesan don’t reveal any trace of illness.

It was, perhaps, after this that Venket understood what it could have meant when Sivaji is referred to as the ‘Director’s actor’ in the industry.

“He came, stood and asked me what he had to do. I was startled. I told him he could do what he was comfortable doing. Please tell me what I must do.

It’s your photo shoot and only you know how I look from the lens,” Venket says, adding how it left him speechless.

“The photo shoot lasted two and a half hours. My lights conked when I made him pose for the photo in the staircase.

While I was working on it, he would funnily say Enna Andharathila Nikka Vittutaaru, Venketgaaru, he recalls.

The shoot, it seems, was without break, and the actor even refused to sit down between shoots. Unfortunately, it was the only opportunity that the photographer had to meet the actor in his lifetime. “But I often keep telling myself I had this chance at least,” the photographer says, with identifiable humility.