I must confess that a lot of my better reading has been thanks to Vinod who has gradually introduced authors I had not heard of (and over the years there have been so many of those). I must also place on record my gratitude to Vinod bhai for constantly upgrading my otherwise mainstream, narrow range. Ashokamitran is one such author that he had introduced to me with his 'Eighteenth Parallel' many years ago. (A common practice when I hear of some rare book is to first check with Vinod if he has that in his vast collection and most times he has it - or makes an effort to get one. Such was the case with this book. I asked and he pulled it out of his collection.) While there I must also add Sagar to this note because like Vinod, he has greatly expanded my knowledge and understanding of movies by lending me movies of the great actors and makers. Together they have added much to what I am today.
It is an account of Ashokamitran's years with his boss, SS Vasan, the man behind Gemini Studios and many more business ventures. The books starts with the author recollecting when he first met his boss-to-be-later along with his father - Vasan and his father had somehow become friends. It was an interesting incident - apparently Ahokamitran's father bought some books at a bookstall that Vasan owned and did not have enough money.When he returned a few books Vasan told him to send the money from Hyderabad and that he trusted him. Looks like to led to a lifelong friendship.
So when young Ashokamitran's father passed away suddenly in the Lalaguda Railway hospital, he was shaken -one from the sudden death and then from the responsibility of moving out of the railway quarters and to a life on their own. They did. Vasan reached out to him and asked him to join the new studio he had purchased - he was a serial entrepreneur and had tried everything from publishing (he was a writer first), mail order businesses (ran a successful magazine -Ananda Vikatan') and so on.
Ashokamitran moves to Madras and joins the Gemini Studios and sees his boss's ways of dealing with friends and family - giving them all jobs and keeping them occupied, taking care of all his employees, having grand visions and executing them, making Tamil films and then moving into Hindi films, bringing talent from across the continents and from Bombay as well. Some worked and some did not and it hurt Vasan most when he had to relieve some of his employees.
The description of his daughter's wedding where everyone got a gift and what was done in the most lavish of manners, his friendship with Rajaji, his story department and how he took care of writers and poets and of all arts despite keeping a sharp nose for profit. His employing foreign technicians, his plans to go across to new markets - he had amazing energy. When Ashokamitran said he wanted to quit because he was a writer and was wasting his time in the PR department Vasan apparently said - if you were a writer you would not have been wasting your time in this work all these years. Now that is a great piece of advise for anyone - whatever you are, put your energy there.
There are small tidbits - about poets, actors like Madhubala, Devika Rani (who gave Ashokamitran a rose in passing once), Ramanand Sagar, MGR - very interesting stuff told in his minimal, wry manner which somehow seems funny and tragic at the same time. He is a master at his craft.
Lovely read. Thanks Vinod bhai for yet another lovely book.
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