Potpourri of tidbits about Tamil cinema - Kutty Padmini

“MGR took special classes for me …!”

‘Kutty’ Padmini was popularly known as ‘Chutti Padmini’ also during her debut days in the celluloid industry. Padmini was the fifth-born child of the couple Srinivasa Chakravarthy – Radha Bhai. She has two elder brothers and two elder sisters. Her mother had acted in a few films, as heroine in some of them and as sister or mother in the other few. Padmini’s first film was ‘Bhagyalakshmi’ when she was just a three-month old baby! Her tryst with the celluloid world continues even today through the small screen.

My association with her goes back a long way. I got the opportunity to mingle with her when she was a theatre artiste. The enduring friendship gave me many opportunities to have a glimpse of her eventful career and life.

Excerpts from some of her interviews:

Q: As you had entered cinema at a tender age itself your studies must have been interrupted …

A: Yeah … Initially I was put at the Vidhyodhaya School at T. Nagar. But as I could not attend the school regularly, the management of the school removed my name from the attendance register. Then, I was put at Holy Angel’s Convent. The story repeated. As I was acting in films of five languages, my mother arranged for tuition for all the five languages. I passed graduation course in Hindi in my later days.

Q: Tell us about your experience as a child artiste …

A: I did the role of junior Savithri in the films ‘Kaathiruntha kanngal’ and ‘Paasamalar’. At that time, I was just a child. It was in director Sridhar’s film ‘Nenjil orr aalayam’ that I understood acting, dialogue delivery and the shots. After that film, I used to absorb everything that would make a shot. Kamal and I are very close friends. We used to call each other ‘vaadaa, podaa’, ‘vaadi, podi’. We both entered cinema as child artistes at the same period and we used to play whenever we met at the studios. We are in touch even today.

In those days, the child artistes would surely have a song in every film or at least, they would be the focus of a song. In the film ‘Nenjil orr aalayam’, Devika would sing a song holding me in her arms. In the film ‘Kuzhanthaiyum deiyvamum’ I had two songs. Both the songs turned out to be chartbusters. In the film ‘Navarathri’, Savithri would sing the song ‘Sollavaa, kathai sollavaa …’ holding me. She would feed me from a silver bowl with her own hand during the days of the shooting.

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