NERE CHOVVE

Last week Johnny Lukose, the Director of News at MM TV, addressed a combined meeting of three Rotary clubs, including ours at Hotel Renai. He spent about an hour narrating his experience of interviewing various personalities, most of them celebrities, on ‘nere chovve’ an exclusive one to one interview format that he leads for the channel, telecasted every Tuesday. So far he had interviewed more than 300 people in Nere Chovve and some of the experiences were interesting to hear.

One take away from the speech was about his insight into Malayali audience. He says Malayali looks for purity more than smartness in the people and to know the same, Malayali does not mind going deep into the bedroom of the person. The prying eyes of the Mallu want to know everything, before making the judgment on the person. So, to deliver what his audience wants, even Johnny Lukose covers his smartness with the purity. He keeps a very friendly approach throughout the interview. Unlike the Karan Thaper’s of the world, he does not go into confrontation with his interviewee. However very innocently, he puts his ‘kusruti choddyngal’ (smart questions) to the person and more often than not, gets the reply spontaneously without the cover of any formality. So, these smart questions, covered with the purity of innocence instantly opens up the interviewee and without any thought to protect his/her vanity, the answer comes out in the open. It is a sort of ‘caught off guard’ scene. But that is exactly what the Malayali wants and Johnny Lukose, thus feeds his appetite. No wonder, it is a successful program being looked forward to by his audience every Tuesday.

Based on his experience, he finds Kamal Hasan, the actor a very intelligent person. It was interesting to hear him speaking about one of the most beautiful Women in India, Jayaprada, the film star turned politician, confirming her total allegiance to Amar Singh, Mammootty caught off guard quipping about Mohanlal’s fans blaming him of cursing his superstar rival, actor-danseuse Shobhana, in spite of banning private questions, answering about her aspirations of having husband and children and shrewd politician KM Mani checking with him every half an hour after the interview and suggesting to cut these and that. But the essence of this post is what I am going to write now.

Mohanlal the actor, he says is a very difficult person to interview. His answers are always philosophical, never straight and always skirting around the issue without ever confirming anything. To Mohanlal Jonny asked a kusrutichodyam on the rumors about him. Lal answered that there are many including him being hospitalised on AIDS, about his imminent death of some dreaded disease etc. Not getting the answer he wanted, Johnny said that he had heard that recently Mohanlal did a celebration with some very intimate friends of commemorating his conquest of three thousand women. Very coolly and instantly Lal commented that ‘oh, that is not it, the number could be high’. At the end of the interview Johnny Lukose, having felt that telecasting the same may hurt personal and family sentiments of Lal, offered to delete the question. But Lal very nicely said, ‘Let it be on, no problem’.

Probably it is this philosophical indifference aspect of Mohanlal that makes his fans like him. But one finds it a little abhorring to think about. There has always been this talk about Mohanlal’s likes of wine and women. Once I saw an interview of him by Sreekantan Nair in Asianet, telecasted on aThiruvonam day. It was the days of the ‘cloaked’ liquor advertisement “vaikittentha paripadi” of Mohanlal. Nair asked him (do not remember the lines exactly, but it was sort of) “Innentha pariadi, ithum mattethum okke undo” (what is the program today, THIS and THAT there?). Without flinching Mohanlal asked “Mattethennu vachal?” (THAT means what?). Nair replied, “Athu Ningalku ariyarutho” (Don’t you know what it is?)…………….

On that Thiruvonam holiday, with a positive feeling, I was sitting in my sister’s house at Attingal with my sixth standard son on one side and college going daughter on the other. When Lal asked ‘mattethu’, my son, whose Malayalam is not all that great, was about to ask me “Dad what is Mattethu?” But just before that, I stood up, switched off the TV and walked out of the room.

So much so for our cultural icons……………………………….