‘Form follows function’: An ode to K Shekhar, the art direction genius who bought ‘My Dear Kuttichathan’ to life

“Form follows function”

I inactive retrieve the time helium mentioned it. It was successful the twelvemonth 1981, astatine my residence successful Alappuzha, Kerala, successful the chamber I shared with my elder member Jijo. My begetter had started his ain movie accumulation company, Navodaya, successful 1977, aft the demise of his elder member Kunchacko. We had constricted resources, but tremendous energy. The chamber was our gathering room. Our residence besides housed our movie organisation office. Our car shed was converted arsenic the storeroom wherever movie boxes and cinema posters were piled up. That chamber was the witnesser to respective publication discussions, movie budgets, container bureau collections and auditions of Malayalam cinema. The walls of the country were painted parrot green, truthful we utilized to telephone it ‘pacha muri’, meaning ‘green room’; nary wonderment it was the greenish country wherever immoderate of Malayalam cinema’s legends got launched. Mohanlal’s audition for Manjil Virinja Pookkal was done successful that greenish room.

“Form follows function.” That punctuation came from K Shekhar, the reclusive all-arounder who was roped successful arsenic the costume designer, connected the archetypal time of our meeting.

After the occurrence of Manjil Virinja Pookkal (1980), written and directed by Fazil, masterminded by my member Jijo, produced by my begetter Appachan, my member had started moving connected his directorial debut, Padayottam (the archetypal Malayalam movie to beryllium changeable successful 70 MM). The communicative was based connected Alexander Dumas’ French Classic ‘Count of Monte Cristo’, which each literate buffs successful 1 enactment shriek was “the eventual revenge story”! The protagonist successful the communicative was played by the container bureau prima of Malayalam, Prem Nazir, who was 55 years aged astatine that point. He had to play 2 get-ups: the treacherously banished young warrior arsenic good arsenic the 60-year-old enigma millionaire who returns years aboriginal to service the coldest revenge dish. Kerala has been a humid state since clip immemorial. During medieval times, menfolk ne'er wore precocious garments arsenic humidity made it uncomfortable. Costume dramas had to travel the aforesaid pattern. But our predicament was that our ‘evergreen hero’, the moniker helium was carrying, acting barechested made it little presentable, particularly since his property was showing connected his chest. There were respective conflict sequences successful the movie, and the warrior Prem Nazir had to pb his ft soldiers and cavalry. There was besides a enslaved vessel series connected the lines of Ben-Hur, wherever Prem Nazir had to play a slave. Our hero, being a large container bureau gully with tons of fans, could not spell bare-chested, adjacent though helium played a slave, and truthful we had to formal him similar a slave, but a dignified one!

“Form follows function.” The greeting treatment stretched a batch and continued aft lunch. I had a nap during the treatment and woke up aft fractional an hour; the taxable of treatment remained the same. Shekhar spoke authoritatively, “When Prem Nazir is warring with a sword, if you are having an over-decorative armour to underline his stardom, it’s going to hamper his action. The costume had to beryllium functional, not elaborate; it would hamper relation and would look odd. But you tin separate him by the colour stripes connected his limb guard, and by giving his costume an ornate aureate beading. Remember, signifier follows function.”

Shekhar ended up designing not conscionable Prem Nazir’s costume, but his makeup, the looks of antithetic warring factions and their armour. He besides designed the publicity posters for the movie. He was a self-taught artist.

On the archetypal time of our gathering with Shekhar, my member and I, some calved into movies, listened to the observations of the fertile outsider. The paradox was that Shekhar had ne'er designed a costume. He did not adjacent take his ain outfits; his household did. But his estimation preceded him. He had an oculus for detail. He was 25 and caller from his Master’s successful Journalism, and held a Degree successful English lit from University College, Tiruvanathapuram. He was a regular lawsuit successful the Indian Coffee House, a taste hub that tolerated the intelligentsia customers who spent hours sipping 1 cupful of java and were ne'er asked to leave. Thiruvananthapuram besides had respective large libraries, which fueled these brains. Besides, the superior metropolis of Kerala had a movie surface which screened classy English movies. Shekhar was a regular successful each the supra venues.

Now, fto maine notation however we got successful interaction with Shekhar. Navodaya was a banner that played precise safely, had made 4 look movies betwixt 1977 and 1979, and each of them had worked astatine the container office. During 1979-80, my begetter understood that things had to change, and his endurance instinct made him judge my brother’s leadership. We decided to marque a movie with caller faces, and arsenic a result, Manjil Virinja Pookkal got made, with Fazil being the director. Mohanlal, a caller look who responded to our casting call, portrayed the antagonist. Sankar and Poornima Jayaram played the lead. Debutant Music composer Jerry Amaldev composed the music. The movie was changeable successful Kodaikanal during May and June 1980 and slated for December release. After main photography, we had planned a patchwork of leftover shots successful Alappuzha connected October 1, 2 and 3. The formed and unit assembled connected September 30, which was erstwhile we met Priyadarshan, a movie buff. He had accompanied Mohanlal from his hometown, Thiruvanthapuram, and we understood his passionateness for movies. Jijo welcomed him into the Padayottam core team. As Jijo and Priyadarshan discussed making Padayottamin the 70 MM canvas, the magnitude grew, and much brains were needed. That’s erstwhile Priyadarshan introduced Jijo to Shekhar and ‘form followed function’ successful Padayottam.

In spite of being an English lit student, Shekhar’s cognition was all-around. He could sermon the flight velocity needed for the NASA rocket to bolt retired of gravitational pull, and successful the aforesaid breath, remark connected the fulcrum and the mechanical ratio of the manus cart utilized successful the Chalai marketplace of his autochthonal Thiruvanthapuram.

Later on, successful 1983, we were toying with the thought of launching India’s archetypal 3D movie. Finding the close communicative was rather a task. Jijo was definite astir 1 happening — helium did not privation to piggyback connected a movie star, arsenic 3D was the star. He besides wanted it to beryllium based connected a Kerala myth. He looked into the medieval Kerala maestro craftsman story of Perunthachathan, but it was excessively cerebral. He had a look astatine Manikkyakallu, a phantasy communicative by M T Vasudevan Nair, but the communicative was up of its clip successful narration to disposable movie peculiar effects technology. We discussed the Kappiri story of Fort Kochi, the shade guarding the Portuguese treasure, which aboriginal connected turned into Barroz. Then sauntered successful Kuttichathan, the poltergeist of Kerala; the conception was acquainted successful Tamil Nadu also. Traditionally, Kuttichathan is simply a scary, mischievous poltergeist that invokes fear. But the smartness successful the communicative was to marque it befriend a clump of kids, and thereby go a affable ghost. It appealed to the kid successful everybody. Armed with the Kuttichathan concept, Jijo and Mathew Paul, his Assistant Director, went each implicit the state successful hunt of a writer. They had meetings with literate giants similar OV Vijayan and Zacharia successful Delhi. On their mode backmost home, they held discussions with Anant Pai and Luiz Fernandes of Amar Chitra Katha successful Mumbai. At a definite point, Malayalam literate elephantine Padmarajan and Sarangapani, who was a regular successful our genitor company, were besides consulted. Finally, it was entrusted to Raghunath Paleri. Shekhar, who was already portion of our deliberation tank, was fixed the Art director’s role.

The communicative starts with an incidental wherever a trio of mean school-going kids frees a Kuttichathan enslaved by an evil magician and takes it home. We had to travel up with the rest. Imagination was going bonkers, and everybody was pitching in. On a good morning, Mathew Paul comes up with the thought that the drunken begetter — who is the maestro of the location wherever the invisible Kuttichathan is secretly staying — finds inexplicable footprints connected the walls and ceiling. That’s erstwhile Shekhar suggested, “Mathew, agelong your imagination, bash not bounds it to footprints, we tin marque each kids locomotion connected the walls and ceiling. Shekhar had deed the spot; cipher past knew helium was making an epoch statement. Jijo was watching each these proceedings from a country of the country with studied silence. Navodaya had a bully postulation of books connected movie-making and acceptable design. Jijo already knew however the dancing prima Fred Astaire had done it, but that was half-hearted partition climbing. It was constricted to jumping and doing a gig connected the broadside wall. It did not person 1 azygous changeable wherever the characters instrumentality a implicit tally connected each 4 walls of a room. Both helium and Shekhar knew successful rule however it was achieved successful Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, an illusion method that had evolved retired of 19th-century fairground entertainment. I But that was Hollywood, and we were movie makers from a distant country of India making a movie with a shoestring budget. Our request was to signifier it successful a surviving country wherever overmuch of the communicative successful the movie is happening; we needed moving space, the country was getting bigger, and truthful was the fund of the movie. Imagination was virtually travelling beyond the Milky Way successful our reasoning campy and defying each laws of physics including gravity.

My begetter decidedly understood the worth of the sequence. He besides knew helium couldn’t acold ablution his ambitious son. With his consent, Jijo approached Mr Rajendran and the squad of SILK Steel Industries Kerala Ltd, the Government of Kerala institution that had precocious designed and erected ceiling tubular trusses of our workplace level successful Kakkanad. Shekhar and my member explained to the Structural Engineers the movie series on with the desired length, breadth and tallness of the room. The velocity astatine which it had to rotate, the value of movie props, the woody walls, the value of movie lights, etc., which we calculated to beryllium six metric tons. Their design, which had to accommodate the surviving room, turned retired to beryllium an octagonal one, 12 feet successful radius and 35 feet long. It was made retired of a tubular alloy truss weighing 24 metric tons. But the fund was a bomb, astir ₹5 to ₹6 lakhs, which was fractional the fund of a Malayalam movie.

The alloy operation and acceptable were erected successful our caller workplace adjacent Kakkanad, Ernakulam. Lighting the gravity-defying country for photography was a task. As the unmanned lights had to beryllium welded oregon bolted, the powerfulness proviso cabling was a conundrum. Miles of cables had to beryllium wrapped astir the structure. The unmanned movie camera was bolted wrong the room, stone steady. At times, it was manned, and alternatively of the Director of Photography Ashok Kumar, cameraman Soman volunteered to beryllium virtually welded to the camera that rotated on with the set. The operation was rotated manually. It took america 2 weeks to implicit the opus series which Ilaiyaraaja had composed. The 95-minute movie was changeable successful 77 days.

The gravity-defying country wherever the kids ascent the partition is technically an illusion. The kids who are connected the determination ne'er defy gravity; it’s really the country which rotates portion the kids support connected walking on with the rotation. The illusion is imaginable arsenic the camera fixed wrong the country besides rotates on with the room. The assemblage watching the movie gets to spot what’s changeable successful the camera.

Interestingly, Shekhar had different tryst with gravity during his assemblage days. He wrote the publication for an English play for an All India Radio younker program. It was a farcical drama acceptable successful England. Newton discovers the Law of Gravity, and the King knights him. The naive pome farmers recognize that the find was a effect of an pome falling connected Newton’s head. So they attack the King with a memorandum. Can the genius successful Newton someway trim the velocity astatine which apples clang onto the crushed and thereby prevention apples from getting bruised?

Shekhar’s cognition of past came successful useful during the making of the prime-time Sunday Doordarshan serial, Bible Ki Kahaniyan. This was mostly changeable successful Rajasthan. He was portion of the probe squad Navodaya had sent to Israel. Apart from gathering Bible scholars, helium was capable to walk clip astatine archaeological excavation sites.

There was practically nary task Jijo did without Shekhar. Shekhar had a accidental successful the plan of the amusement park, Kishkinta, Chennai, named aft the legendary carnal kingdom successful Ramayana. His pivotal publication was successful the theming of the White Water rafting ride. He conceived the aforesaid successful the lines of the Hindu temple ruins of Angkor Wat successful Cambodia. Based connected his conception sketch, it was painstakingly handcrafted by Muthuraj implicit a play of 4 years betwixt 1990 and 1993. Muthuraj was a novice caller retired of the Government Fine Arts College during that time. This determination has been featured successful innumerable movies, the latest being the Vijay movie The Greatest of All Time.

The yesteryear of movie-making, up of the contiguous integer era, was riddled with tons of risks and uncertainties. It was adventurous. Everything had to beryllium done for real. The assemblage utilized to wonderment however definite actions oregon visuals were achieved. Today, the movie spectator doesn’t person that excitement, arsenic they disregard it muttering, “graphics.” There was an property erstwhile you could not fake everything. Shekhar belonged to that era. If you were a moviegoer of the 80s and 90s who gasped connected the borderline of your seat, blasted it connected Shekhar due to the fact that helium would person had a manus successful it. He had made respective breathtaking intolerable moments possible.

Shekhar ran retired of enactment successful the past week of December 2025. He won the Kerala Government State Award successful 1986 for the movie Onnu Muthal Poojyam Vare and worked arsenic the Art Director of the Padmini, Nadhiya Moidu starring Tamil movie Poove Poo Chooda Vaa directed by Fazil. Both movies were produced by Navodaya Films.