A day ago, Pratap Pothen was still writing posts on Facebook, taking digs at life and death with his trademark dark humour. "When you treat the symptoms of a problem without treating the root cause of it, then you will start to be dependent on the pharmacy," said one post. Quoting American comedian George Carlin, he wrote another, "Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time." By the morning of July 15, Pratap was found dead in his sleep in his Chennai apartment. A heart attack in the middle of the night took the maverick actor and filmmaker's life. By then he was close to 70 years of age and had contributed much to films, Tamil and Malayalam most of all.
Pratap was divided between the two languages, beginning as an actor in one, and almost simultaneously in the other, directing films here and there, speaking both of it and English with a casual fluency that his school days in Lovedale, Ooty had brought him. He was from Ranni in Kerala but did most of his studies in then Madras. "I believe he began work in an ad agency in Bombay as a copywriter. And in Madras, he used to live at the office of Supriya Films (his brother Hari Pothen’s production house). That's where my father met him and became close with him," says Ananthapadmanabhan, writer and journalist and son of the legendary filmmaker Padmarajan.
Padmarajan and Bharathan, late directors and colleagues who made many great films in the 1980s, would keep meeting Pratap at Surpriya Films, which produced some of their early works. "Bharathan would come to the office in a Lamby scooter and my father would be there too and they would all talk about films and books. My father and he got close because they both loved to read. Pratap ettan was then doing theatre with Cho Ramaswamy and Bharathan had wanted Cho to play the character of Kokarako in his film Aaravam. When Cho could not do it, he wanted Pratap Pothen to," Ananthapadmanabhan says.
Thakara, the second film of Pratap as an actor, broke many norms of the time. It was nearly 1980, a time when Prem Nazir was still dominating Malayalam films and Jayan was recognised as the new star in the block. Future stars Mohanlal and Mammootty were only making their debut and films were taking new directions. Bharathan was among the pioneers of this new wave and madeThakara, after many skeptical naysayers had turned it down. It was unexpectedly received well and Pratap recognised an actor to be reckoned with.
Watch: Scenes from Thakara
Thakara was about a person with intellectual disability, falling in love with his mentor’s daughter. Bharathan followed it up with two more wonder movies with the same actor – Lorry and Chamaram. He played a poor lorry cleaner in the first and a rebel of a student falling in love with his teacher in Chamaram. Padmarajan wrote Thakara and Lorry.
“In those first Malayalam films – Aaravam, Thakara and Lorry – he played characters in a rural rustic setting, quite opposite to the urbanised background he came from,” says GP Ramachandran, film critic. Pratap, going to Lovedale and then Madras Christian College had a carefree life that most young people of the time would be envious of, he says. But the characters he played were so different from the stereotype of a male lead until then, GP adds.
Watch: Scene from Chamaram
“He had no image to protect, unlike his contemporaries who were turning into stars. He also fell into no stereotype. He may have played a man with mental health issues in the early days but later turned effortlessly into an English-speaking smart villain, like in 22 Female Kottayam. He was a sort of ‘counter star’ in that respect, being both affordable and a man who could do many different roles,” says GP, coining a term for the actor. He sort of played such a 'counter star' in the film Pappu, a neglected person growing into a rising star in a script by K Balachander.
It didn’t take long for Pratap to begin making films of his own. He began in Tamil, with Meendum Oru Kaathal Kathai in 1985, which won him the Indira Gandhi Award for best debut as director. He had by then done a few movies in Tamil as an actor, after the legendary Balu Mahendra roped him in for Azhiyadha Kolangal. That’s the first time Pratap had a song in a film.
He considered Balu his mentor, calling him a path breaking director uncorrupted by the commercial film industry. Pretty soon, he appeared in another of Balu Mahendra’s films, Moodupani, which had him play a guitar and sing to the late Sobha the popular romantic song ‘Yen Iniya Pon Nilaavae’.
“He had a musical sensibility and he sang well,” Ananthapadmanabhan recalls.
Pratap had a unique voice, slightly nasal and spoken with a hint of an accent. It gave his characters depth, appeal and quality. The real person behind the voice could not be too far different, you felt.
He was straightforward to the point of being outright critical when he didn’t like something, Ananthapadmanabhan admits. He remembers an interesting episode of introducing director Lal Jose to Pratap. “Lal didn’t want me to give an intro before the meeting. And when I took him, Pratap ettan asked, ‘what do you do?’ Lal said he made films and Pratap ettan said, ‘good’. Later he wanted to cast Pratap Pothen for Ayalum Njanum Thammil. He came on board after some persuasion and during the first days of shooting, he was angry, calling me and saying it won’t work. But later he became so comfortable with the team, he’d crack jokes with them.”
He was then in a sort of second innings, becoming active in the latter part of 2000s after staying away from acting for years. The insufferable Hedge in 22 Female Kottayam also came in this period, where he keeps reappearing in nurse Tessa’s life as a rapist. Aashiq Abu, directing the film, cast him again for his next, Idukki Gold, where Pratap became one of the old men reminiscing about a past boyhood together.
Watch: Trailer of Idukki Gold
“He had many rebirths that way. He was a reader for one and a filmmaker for another,” GP says. He also had his ad agency Green Apple, doing work for giants like MRF Tyres, with big shots like Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara.
Through the 80s and 90s, he also directed a few films in Tamil and Malayalam, movies like My Dear Marthandam, Daisy, Rithubedam, Magudam and Oru Yathra Mozhi. In Telugu, he made one with Nagarjuna, called Chaitanya. But he was rarely satisfied as a director; barring films like his first Meendum Oru Kathal Katha, few gave him satisfaction.
Literary critic NE Sudheer, in a post, remembers him as a great reader who made literature and literary English novels a daily part of his life. Pratap loved Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ananthapadmanabhan says. You can find Marquez in the 50 odd books Pratap rated on Goodreads. “He would quote lines from Marquez. Another time, he said that Vettri Vizha, the Tamil film he made with Kamal, had small inspirations from an English novel series, and chuckled, saying that he made it a movie before Hollywood. He suggested that Clara (a much commented upon character in Padmarajan’s film Thoovanathumbikal) might have been inspired from another English book. He wanted to make a film about the other main characters in Udakappola, the (Padmarajan) book from which Thoovanathumbikal was adapted. He gifted many books to my father, with the note ‘To Pappu, with love Pratap’.”
Watch: Song from Vettri Vizha
It is to Padmarajan and Bharathan he is most grateful – the two people who trusted in him, Pratap used to tell Ananthan. Bharathan’s son and filmmaker Sidharth Bharathan wrote in his short tribute that ‘Thakare will be missed dearly’.
Last Pratap spoke to Ananthan was when Nedumudi Venu, a great talented actor of Malayalam cinema, died last October. “He would say that Venu chettan taught him how to walk and talk like Thakara (in which Venu played the rogue Chellappan Asari).”
He liked to write too and once Pratap told Ananthapadmanabhan that he was planning to write his autobiography and call it ‘Tale told by an idiot’, derived from a line in Shakespeare’s Tempest.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in his condolences, said that Pratap expressed ‘rightful’ opinions in social and political topics. Pratap’s family – from the time of his father Kolathingal Pothen – had at first been staunch Communists, but later turned against the party, Ananthapadmanabhan says. “He had talked about watching the ‘vimochana samaram’ as a little child in his mother’s lap and after that, the family turned against Communism.”
In all, Pratap was a great person, a true bohemian, in Ananthapadmanabhan’s words. GP says that when people like Pratap who represented a certain era pass away, it is our understanding of those times that falls.
Callous about death, Pratap posted John Donne’s poem ‘Death Be Not Proud’ on his page only four days ago.
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.