Potpourri of tidbits about Tamil cinema - Vennira Aadai Nirmala

‘Vennira aadai’ Nirmala was introduced to cinema by director Sridhar through his film ‘Vennira aadai’. She reigned over the Tamil filmdom during the Sixties and Seventies as one of the leading heroines of the time and without any sign of let up. She shared screen space with leading heroes including MGR, Sivaji, Gemini, Jaishankar, Muthuraman, Ravichandran, Sivakumar, Sasikumar, Srikanth and A. V. M. Rajan.

I was able to befriend her very easily without any formal introduction thanks to the fact that both of us belonged to Kumbakonam. Her innocent smile and face would endear her to all. She is so involved in the art of ‘Bharatanatyam’ that she is running a dance school at her house even today with the aim that this exemplary art should be propagated among the present day youth. Many of her students are good performers and even grown-up women can be found among the lot. She has dedicated her life to the art that she remains single till date.

I had invited Nirmala to participate in many of the functions got up by the film industry people as well as outsiders and she had never failed to turn up if she didn’t have any other more important program on those days. I had interviewed her on many occasions for the sake of different magazines and she had always evinced great interest and had been very cooperative on those occasions.

Select excerpts from interviews:

Nirmala: My native place is Kumbakonam. We belong to Saurashtra community. My father’s name was Balakrishnan, and mother’s Rukmini. My father was a jury in the Thanjavur court. Once, when he was travelling to Thanjavur, one Mr. Vasudevachariar, a research scholar had also been travelling in the same compartment. During their conversation, Chariar had spoken very high about the art of dance. He had mentioned that the Chola king Rajaraja taught the art of dancing to his own daughter. At that moment, my father took a decision that if a daughter were born to him, she should be given training in dancing and made a popular and eminent dancer. It became his goal and ambition to make his daughter an iconic figure in the field. I’ve one elder sister and two elder brothers. I did my 1st and 2nd Stds. at the Morning Star school and I studied up to 6th Std. at the St. Joseph school. My father arranged tuition for vocal music, veena and dance. As my school timing and tuition timings clashed, he discontinued my studies and arranged a tuition teacher for my studies also.

KM Matrimony Best Services –