Obituary: Venu Nagavally, The Eternal Devdas, Sleeps

In a way, Venu Nagavally is happy now. He has finally met death, his object of affection and one of the two central characters of most of his movies. The other being destiny.

Nagavally’s persona was best portrayed perhaps by Lalettan, the lead character of Sarvakalashaala, arguably Nagavlly’s best movie. Lalettan, played by the then fantastic Mohan Lal, spends close to seven years in that one college, going through his under-graduation, graduation and post graduation.

It’s not that the lonely orphan loves studies or is ambitious about his academics. It’s just that he doesn’t want to leave his venerable alma mater -- his only support system.

Like Lalettan, Nagavally never passed out of his college days. He survived on sheer nostalgia; nostalgia for his own days of youth, when Castro and Marx were his gods and an ever expanding flock of friends his family. In the process, he kindled our memories. And how!

As an actor, he was not great. His morose and lifeless characters were almost always depressing -- the typical self-destructive devdas. He was perhaps the quintessential art-house actor.

But behind the camera Nagavally let his hair down. He loved to portray the camaraderie among friends and neighbours (and no one could beat him at that). Be it Swagatham, Ayitham, Sukhamo Devi, Kalippattam, Sarvakalashala or Hey! Auto, youthful banter and frolicking of the main characters were the high points of his movies.

Nagavally was the typical “thinking moviemaker” of the 1980s Kerala. Yet, he also was intellectually honest. We get an indication of this in one scene in Sarvakalashala.

The otherwise chirpy, impish and affable “Chakkara” — a sidekick played by Manianpilla Raju -- one fine day turns (pseudo-) serious, complete with a jubba, oiled hair, a side-bag and a thoughtful look.

When asked what the problem was, he says he wants to get serious in life. “Oru Venu Nagavally mood!” (I’m in a Venu Nagavally mood) he says. Rarely has any moviemaker made fun of himself in such a fashion and yet come out unscathed.

No single character took centre stage in Nagavally’s movies. They all played their parts. Yet they beautifully complemented the plot itself.
But wait. Of course there were central characters. Unmistakably yes. And they were destiny and death. Nagavalli’s movies were the visual manifestation of “man proposes, god/fate/destiny disposes”.

He charmed us with his witty dialogues (which he lent to other moviemakers too, like Priyadarshan) that were more or less directly lifted from the lay Malayalee’s routine conversations. But after he had lulled us this way, he would unleash the tormenting twists and turns in the plot, that left a lump in our collective throat.

Be it the accidental death of the character played by Ashokan in Swagatham or the passing away of Lal’s character in Sukhamo Devi, or the shooting of Siddhan -- the eccentric vagabound poet played by Nedumudi Venu -- in Sarvakalashaala. The dying character usually left behind so many incomplete tasks and profound thoughts that they changed almost everybody’s life overnight. Talk about vacuum.
Death indeed was the harbinger of unimaginable changes in Nagavally movies. It was the point of deflection in most of his narratives, or the culmination of the storm kicked up his other muse, destiny.

Consider the shock the mortuary van gives us when it passes by her gate just as Urvashi sets out to elope. The very person who was supposed to help her elope is lying in the van, cold dead.

Or this: Actor Sunny, Lal’s elder brother in Sukhamo Devi, reaches home on hearing of his younger brother’s death. After exchanging compulsive pleasantries with Lal’s buddies, with a quivering voice, he asks: “Enikku oru cigarette tharumo arenkilum?” (Someone give me a cigarette) And then his trembling hands cannot light the cigarette. Unmatched, till this day.

Lal Salaam, sakhavu Nagavally! May you have a good time with your beloved.
Note: Nagavally passed away in the wee hours of Thursday, September 9, 2010.