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| Usha and Soundara |
The article was published in Star of Mysore on April 14,2013.
Usha, Soundara Rajan’s better half
greets me with an infectiously warm smile as she ushers me into their modest
apartment in Mysore. For the
uninitiated, N.S.Soundara Rajan is Mysore’s connection to the Oscar winning
movie Life of Pi. I am greeted with
an equally contagious smile when the man in question enters their simple, but
aesthetically done up living room. We exchange pleasantries and the
conversation obviously rolls into his days on the sets of Life of Pi.
“Ang Lee is a perfectionist. He wanted the
actors to narrate their dialogues with typical accent of the particular state
like how Tamilians speak English that’s the reason a person like me was hired,”
tells Soundara. Our Mysore man had the task of teaching English with Tamil and
Gujarati twang to the coveted star cast with the focused emphasis on perfecting
their accent. The offer landed in his lap through his son’s actor friend
Thilothama who had auditioned for the role of Pi’s on screen love interest.
Though Thilothama didn’t get the desired role, Soundara became the Tamil accent
guy for the Hollywood crew. For this septuagenarian, Life of Pi was his first tryst with films where he also doubled up
as cultural coach for the crew.
“It would be an understatement to
admit that I was nervous. I was extremely nervous and highly pressurized
because the expectations were high and there was no one to give directions. On
the first day, I was given a file of all the dialogues which had to be spoken
with Tamil and Gujarati accent. After that it was on me to deliver,” Soundara
explains, flipping through the pages of the file which now equals a pride
souvenir for the family. “I was the final authority in my area of work with no
interference or micro management from Ang , actors or anyone else. The renowned
director had complete trust in the people he had hired which made us bring our
best onto the table,” he raves. “As I look back to those moments of
shooting of the film, I can only have immense admiration and respect for Ang
Lee and his wonderful team that worked in this magnificent movie. The amount of
focussed energy and commitment to professionalism and realism that has gone
into making this epic of a movie is indeed very remarkable. I am proud to have
been a crew member of Life of Pi,
truly, a once-in-a-several-lifetimes opportunity,” he beams.
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| With Ang Lee |
There is no stopping Soundara when
he talks about Ang Lee, the man he is in awe of. Talking about Ang’s
professionalism and perfectionism, he recalls a scene from the movie where
actor Tabu is taking out colours from an old Bournvita dabba to draw rangoli
designs. Ang sourced an old worn out Bournvita dabba from Pondicherry for this
scene; every scene had to be closest to reality.
“How was it working with the big
names in film industry?” I can’t help asking.
“Since Ang Lee didn’t have any star like
tantrums, the others in the crew too followed suit. Ang was always the first one to arrive on the
sets,” he tells recalling his sixty days at Taichung in Central Taiwan and
Pondicherry where the shooting was held. Rightly said, a good leader always
leads by example. For sure, Ang should be the right pick to give lessons at our
management institutes. “Coaching Tabu and Adil Hussain was not a problem as
both of them are versatile actors, but it was extremely challenging to coach
Suraj Sharma who played the role of Pi. Here his TGI method,
short for Transformation Guided Imagery, came in handy. TGI is a
motivational technique where the person is made to visualize success and the
final outcome of the task in hand. “I asked Suraj to imagine that he was
receiving Oscar and it worked well both ways; Suraj picked up proper diction
and we won four Oscars,” Soundara says gleefully. Young Ayush Tandon who plays
Pi as a school going boy and a few others were also coached by him.
“Do you have any future plans for
more such film projects?” I ask. “I don’t have any plans, but life does strange
things so you never know,” he replies philosophically.
“Why don’t you pen a book about your
experiences?” I prod this former Electronics & Radar Establishment (LRDE)
staffer who is now a visiting faculty for Communication and negotiation skills
at SP Birla institute in Bangalore, Manipal University and Bhavan’s Priyamvada Birla Institute of
Management, Mysore. He evades my poser and expounds on how
knowledge of English can change the employability of our youth. Why do students
of 10th grade need to study Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare? He
questions. They only need to communicate in English which is the key to success.
English language should be taught from the usage perspective just like the
mother tongue, without bothering much about grammar. In fact, teaching grammar
scoops out the fun from learning a language.
Point to ponder, but that would be another
story, another day.
He lovingly calls his wife to join him for the photograph when I take
out my Sony Cyber - shot from my handbag for the photo shoot.
“Why my picture, what have I done?” she laughs.
“You were my unflinching support throughout the journey. Can a man be
successful without the support of his wife? ” he asks.
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Some facts from Life of Pi (Source: The making of
Life of Pi by Jean Christophe Castelli )
· Almost 86 percent of the scenes featuring
Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger were shot using a computer-generated tiger.
· Most of the time, what you thought was the vast sea was not actually a
sea but an enormous pool- 246 ft long by 98 ft wide by 10 ft deep- holding
about 1,860,000 gallons of water . The
waves were generated by a system of blowers stored inside a row of twelve
boxes- “caissons,” in tank talk – that had a cumulative 2000 horsepower.
· The entire ‘sea’ shooting was done indoors in Taichung. Imagine your
own indoor sea.
· The post production period of the mega movie was one and a half years
· The total budget of the movie was $ 120 million.
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