Part 57: That green-eyed girl who became my wife-Shailaja!

I had spent all my life thus far wanting to be a hero in films. And at that very second I know that that’s the way it was going to be. I just had to recover and leave the hospital. I literally willed septicemia out of my leg. No way…. No bloody way were they going to cut my leg like they did Vinod’s. Thus began my very long and arduous journey in the world of Tamil cinema. I know I would act. Leg or no leg, I knew I was going up on celluloid and I would act someday. As a hero. A top hero! I still feel that it was that manic urge to act that got me walking.

Unable to walk I will always think how I would be able to act in movies. When I asked Dr. Mohandas why I am not able to fold my legs he used to say with smile “You have your legs with and feel happy for it”.

Around that very life-changing moment I remembered that just a month back Sudha Chandran had acted in a movie called Nache Mayuri. Sudha Chandran lost her leg in some car accident and the doctors fitted her with the Jaipur foot. And that had become her USP in the world of cinema. A movie made on the tragic accident afforded her a direct entry into movies. I figured I would do the same. If need be I would fit myself with the same Jaipur foot and become an action hero in cinema.

With help of crutch I used to try to walk one full day and can move only up to 10 feet. I couldn’t even keep my legs down .If only I try the nerves would pull itself and start to ache. I asked my mom whether if I get rid of my legs would be able to manage with dummy legs like actress Sudhachandran. Just one slap. That too with a rapid speed. And that was the first and last she had hit me!

But even if I would never let my leg be amputated, I had a back-up plan all ready in case it did happen. Nobody knows what and how things really shaped up after that. But the doctors saved the leg. I willed them to. But I also lost four solid years of my life trying to make it work.

The doctors still tell me that I am a medical miracle. There’s no way I should be walking. Much less dancing and fighting and jumping all over the place in my films. These days my doc won’t even look at my leg and tell me what condition it is in. he says, ‘Someone up there is making it work. Let it be.’

I just knew that I would walk again. I had to. I wanted to be an actor, you see!

With crutch I managed one full year. Dr.Mohandas told I won’t be able to walk but the willpower in me dragged me to work for it. Since I wanted my dreams, to become an actor, to come true. Everybody used to mock at me hearing my aim but I simply ignored and continued with my goal of achieving the target I set. I was determined and was very strong in my decision.

I used to go to Loyola College with the crutch to write my exams. Everyone in the college had their attention towards me. I did not hear any sorry feelings among the noise of the crutch.

I was able to finish my studies amidst of such sufferings. Yep. I did my degree. I studied computers and worked for the same institute as a tutor for 2 months. They did not pay me but instead divert me when I try to ask them by offering a cup of coffee for me.

Afterwards I changed to stylish stick as actor Shivaji used to have in his movies. It took me 4years to walk properly without any aid.

In the fourth year of my accident I took up a job at Lintas as a copywriter. For a monthly stipend of 750 bucks. I would go to work on crutches every single day. Sometimes I walked an hour to work. Because that would toughen the leg. Even at Lintas I experienced the powers of big guys versus the small guys. The Lintas office in Madras was always saddled with the most down market of all campaigns. We ended up working on some vague and unknown insurance company or other such boring clients. The most happening campaigns always went to the Bombay office. Just that one time when MRF launched their new Zigma Radial tyres did we at the Madras office get to work on a ‘big’ campaign. Radial tyres signify safety. But no one really buys them because of the safety aspect. People buy them because they are sleek; they signify speed and a lot of panache. And my copy sort of worked on that. I came with some cool lines like, ‘Hug Curves. Flirt with Speed. MRF Zigma tyres.’ When Alyque Padamsee, the big man at Lintas, saw that I had written he was very impressed. He praised my work in the meeting. And once that was done, he simply shoved it to one side and showed us what he had come up with!

That was a major eye opener for me.

You may work hard, be the most talented but unless you are at the right place at the right time with the right people to support you, you get nowhere.

It was during this time that I met this fair, green-eyed girl who was to later become my best friend and wife. Shailaja. When I met Shailaja for the first time in a party, I was on crutches and jobless as well. Love at first sight! Albeit she had turned her face away. That was the first time in our life we were attending a party. And when she asked me what I did, I remember I said, ‘Nothing at the moment, but I am going to become a great actor.

I would ramble on and on to her about how I would make it very big! I talked about all the big houses I would buy. The cars. And in classic Shailaja style-she was studying to be a psychologist-she would retort, ‘Kenny, you have a disease called delusions of grandeur!’

That whole year was very simple: work, hospital, therapy, and that green-eyed girl who became my wife-Shailaja!

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