CHENNAI: Once upon a time, the acronym MKT stood for only one man in the then Madras Presidency. He is an actor who strode the nascent Tamil cinema like a colossus. MK Thiagaraja Bhagavathar was a household name and a force to reckon with about 70 years ago in Tamil Nadu.But if there is a person who is a walking encyclopedia of Tamil cinema of 1940s-50s, it could be none other than ‘MKT’ Gopal (74), a confidante of Bhagavathar. Speaking to him reveals a side of MKT that bespoke volumes of the legend. Gopal first saw MKT when the latter paid a chance-visit to Neelakanta Bhavan, a vegetarian hotel in Karaikudi, that was run by Gopal’s father. At that time, young Gopal and his elder brother were small-time actors in TKS Brothers troupe and seeing MKT in flesh and blood was a dream come true for the siblings. “Much later, the death of my elder brother in a freak mishap while preparing a menu, forced my father to shut down the hotel. My uncle’s son took me to Chennai in 1949 to work in a sweat meat shop near Kapaleeswarar temple,” recalls Gopal. He was too excited to be in the same city as his matinee idol and so, the very next day, Gopal went to Adyar to meet MKT. “MKT was visiting Newton Studios at Kilpauk for the shooting of Amaravathy and expressed his unhappiness over my decision to migrate from Karaikudi. Though he found me a job in the studio, I couldn’t work there for long. After the shoot, I used to shuttle between my cousin’s house and MKT’s bungalow in Adyar where I stayed at his garage,” he says. Having tried his luck in acting with a debut role as a vagabond in AVM’s Parasakti (1952), Gopal was strongly advised by his mentor to acquire a time-tested skill to pursue a career and thereby earn a respectful livelihood. Further, MKT took the ardent fan with him to meet Meiyappa Chettiar, proprietor of AVM studios. “Chettiar used to call me kozhukattai (referring Gopal to as a simpleton) and helped me learn life-sustaining skills in one of the filmmaking units,” he says. “Hearing the names of Chettiar and MKT, technicians used to keep a safe distance from me at the studios. But finally, I joined the electrical department for a secure placement,” he says. Despite getting a decent job, Gopal could not help but keep seeing his guru and hence, he did moonlighting at MKT’s house in Adyar. In early 1950s, when MKT’s health deteriorated, a naturopathy doctor from Mannargudi pointed a monstrous well in Hosur having medicinal water that could cure the actor from his breathing problems. Entrepreneur Hariram Seth, who was then a big retinue from Nadigar Sangam, and other divers, travelled from Chennai to bring back water from that well in drums. But it was left to young Gopal to take the risk of entering the deep well and securing the water for his mentor. “Seeing my effort, MKT embraced me and thanked god that nothing happened to me while carting away the water from the deep well,” he recalls. Gopal still preserves the ring the actor gave to him as a token gesture for going to such extremes to take care of his ailing master then. To contact Gopal, call 9710263004.
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