BY N.THYAGARAJAN
A comedian who had made rib-tickling laughter with his mannerisms in comedy like the Western comedians and the comedian who made all of us weep through his penchant for acting through the film like Neerkumuzhi and proved his excellence as villain in Michael Madana Kamarajan and the comedian who had not wasted not even a single frame in Edhir Neechal adding his comedy through the films like Server Sundaram, Thiruvilaiyadal, Kadhalikka Neramillai died this morning at a Private Nursing Home in Chennai after a brief illness. Known as Nagesh, who had matched his acting with the two super film actors like Sivaji Ganesan and MGR and other film heroes like Jai Shankar and Ravichandran in the later years. Nagesh, whose original name is Gundu Rao changed himself as Nagesh after he came out of his house in his younger days stayed in a room along with Sri Kanth and Major Sundararajan. He started as a stage artiste in a drama representing the Ramayana and did the role of a stomach-pain patient. People began to laugh whatever he uttered in the public and Nagesh sometime ago used to say, "the comedy lies in me. I never knew, that there are a lot of things in me to do comedy". He always used to say, that if at all he had earned money, it was from Sando M.M.A.Chinnappa Devar who produced a lot of films then. On taking a lot of money in a box, once the comedian told me, that he wanted to go back to his native place Dharapuram, which is very close to Coimbatore. While his car was passing through a bridge, he saw a lot of people were crowding at a person who was in sub-conscious stage, the comedian thought. But, the very same person was his mother who had breathed her last.
Nagesh never belonged to any political party and he had never grown up as a great actor with the support of any politician individually to come up in his life. He had acted in more than 1000 films which include Kannada and Telugu vernaculars.
He was always used to give bried comment always about death and used to sing the song for which he had acted in Tamil film Neer Kumuzhi. Aadi Adangum Vaazhkkai yada, Aradi Nilamey Sondhamada. ( In life one will play and finally reach his six-feet tomb). At any time, the actor never had the ego, that he was the best comedian. He loved the comedy acting of Thengai Srinivasan.
The actor's combination with the late comedian V.K.Ramasamy and Manorama was appreciated in those days. He was the only comedian who was dearingly called the late actor MGR as Vaa and Poo. MGR liked the actor calling like that, Nagesh used to say. However, both maintained a decent friendship. The actor never wounded anyone's feelings till the day he acted with Kamal Hassan and Kamal liked the actor's acting very much.
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