Raghuvaran

Raghuvaran passes away. I heard this news with utter disbelief. My memories went back to a Sunday afternoon some 20 years back when we watched the weepy Anjali. The whole world spoke about the precocious kid and her histrionics before the camera, what was not spoken was the understated potrayal of the patient father by Raghuvaran. That was Raghuvaran—everything was understated considering the man's potential as an actor. I watched Anjali on DVD recently and watched it intimately—this time for Raghuvaran. (I wish I had known that I was preparing myself for an obituary!) I was reading that he did only 80 movies in his lifetime—I calculated around 400 minutes of cinematic magic (he just needed a 5-minute role to weave his magic on the audience).

P.S. As I am writing this, the baritone of Raghuvaran is ringing in my ears. He tells Tabu when she approaches him for a job,"Y2Kellam mudinja pochcha."