Ambi Rajagopal Viveka Fine Arts

The man who anchored the success story at Viveka Fine Arts passed away recently

Ambi and his wife also built a one of its kind school in the 1970s that has helped students "aim for the best without being aggressively competitive"

Here's a look at how he built the two institutions!!

It was time to part ways at college. A set of friends had had a jolly good time in the 3-4 years that had just gone by. But there was a tinge of sadness in one man. He was keen to continue the strong friendship that he had built with many during this period and was looking for an idea to keep them bonded for life.

It struck him that presenting plays was one good way to do that. It was an accidental meeting at the RR Sabha that led to him to bringing together his group of friends into a full-fledged troupe that over the next 50 years would go on to present well over 5000 hugely successful plays (he lost count after the magical mark of 5000!!!).

That’s ‘Ambi’ Rajagopal (SRG to his friends) for you, the man who anchored this success story. He also roped in his elder brother ‘Cho’ Ramaswamy to pen the stories for his plays. Mohd Bin Tughlaq was an all time favourite, one that was staged over a 1000times. In Saraswathi Sabatham, he created a revolutionary rotating stage as early as the early 1970s.

The plays became the talk of the town. There was a period when Ambi staged over 30plays in a month, with even multiple plays in a day. The ‘Cho Written-Ambi Staged’ plays had caught on like forest fire and the audience was always looking forward to the next play. The troupe continued their success story till 2004, the last one that they presented was Nermai Urangum Neram, after which Cho decided to stop writing.

Anchoring a Radio Programme during the school days

Ambi had had an early exposure to stage plays. When he was in the 4^th form at PS High School, Lakshmana Iyer, his teacher there, roped him in along with a few other students for a radio show that he was producing. A year later, the teacher eased himself out and gave Ambi (and his friend PN Kumar) the responsibility to produce and anchor. Ambi anchored a 30 minute programme on the radio that included children’s play. That was his first initiation into ‘plays’.

And then there was a lull. He had no contact with dramatics till his first year in college.

A Guest in waiting becomes an artiste

Ambi, who spent the first 20years of his life on North Mada Street, used to walk back from Vivekananda College with his neighbour and college mate PN Krishnaswamy (PNK). One evening PNK, who was already acting in dramas, asked Ambi to wait for a while longer as he was finalising the artistes for the annual college drama. Suddenly someone in that group stretched out his hand and pointing at Ambi called him out as ‘Aiyyaswamy’. 

Ambi was a guest in waiting but that accidental wait landed him a role in the college drama.  Though he got into this by accident, he decided to go the whole hog. He stood for the Secretary’s post in the election and won.  Under his leadership, there were many plays presented and prizes won. And in no time, Ambi got addicted to this.

Along with Narayanaswamy (Joint Secy), Muthuswamy and Kothamangalam Mali (Treasurer), Ambi founded Viveka Fine Arts and started staging plays.

Once he accompanied Muthuswamy to RR Sabha (the latter used to get free entry there) to watch Manohar’s Lankeswaran. Ambi was sitting on a cement bench near the green room when Natesan Iyer passed by. He looked at Ambi and asked if he would be interested to stage a play. And that was a life changing moment for him. Ambi grabbed the opportunity with both hands and there was no looking back.

The Big Moment - Roping Cho in

Their play ‘Thenmozhiyal’ was favourably received by the audience. He was looking for a 2^nd play and Cho’s ‘If I get it’ fell on his lap. Cho had joined UAA as a stage assistant. With Pattu writing the plays for UAA, Cho’s story was rejected. Ambi seized the moment and roped Cho into his troupe. He went up to his brother and picked up the story. It became a roaring success. This was staged over 20times in a single year. Along with his troupe, Ambi shot into prominence.

Over the next decade, Cho wrote a number of plays each of which was written in a single sitting. Slapstick and Repartee Comedy and later political satires - ‘Don’t tell anybody’, ‘Wait and See’, ‘Why Not’ and ‘What for’ - had all become super hits that decade. Mohd Bin Tughlaq topped the list. And he always had people wanting more. They just could not resist VFA’s plays. 

Ambi who had joined IOC in the early 60s, would go to the refinery and come straight to the sabha in the evening to anchor the play. Interestingly, when he retired from IOC in 1987, he had the distinction of being the only employee in the PSU to have worked for 25 years in a single location!!! Such was the regard they had for his plays that they just let him be.

As the secretary of the club, Ambi was clear. He would not stop plays for any reason. If any artiste was absent, there were substitutes in place. If electricity was a challenge (and it was many a time in those days), he would have people hold ‘emergency light’ in hand so the play could continue.

Ambi looked back at that golden period with a great sense of satisfaction – ‘We didn’t have ego, no axe to grind, absolutely no commercial interest. There were no personality clashes and nobody wanted prominence. It was a pleasure to work with the entire team over such a long period of time.’

Launch of a Residential School

While the drama success is the more well known side of his life, Ambi along with his wife Shantha launched ‘La Chatelaine’, in 1970, a school that has been revolutionary in many ways over the last 45years.

During one of his trips to the Swiss Alps, Ambi and his wife came across an interesting finishing school. Impressed with the concept, they started a similar one in Chennai. Students were taught horse riding, music- western/Indian and dance, among other extra-curricular activities in addition to academics. His idea was to keep it down to around 50 students. However, demand for the offering increased dramatically to almost four times this number.

He bought a five acre property in Valasarvakkam in the mid 1970s and set up a 1000 children residential school with students joining in from all over the world. Children were monitored 24 hours a day. Parents fully trusted and depended on Ambi and his wife to take care of their children. Ambi roped in a battery of teachers for the non-academics that included a cultural wing within the school.

Shantha had been a professor at the QMC. When they decided to set up a small school in Chetput in 1970, there were many who were apprehensive as she had no previous experience in school management. With Ambi shuttling between the refinery and the Sabhas, she was left with the day to day management in those early days “It has been a wonderful and a most satisfying experience taking care of the children over the last 45 years. Many of my students are still in touch with me and we feel happy that they are all doing well in life." 

In 1999, with age catching up with him and after almost 3decades of taking care of several thousands of children like his own, he started converting the Residential School to a Day School. This transformation to a 3600 children day school was complete in 2008.

Interestingly, a lot of what he did for students in the residential school still continues in the current set up - free lunch for students and teachers. The children do not carry books, lunch boxes and big bags to school. Every child is given ‘protected’ drinking water.  Ambi’s has been the only private school here to provide full lunch to teachers and students without any charges. In the late 1990s, his was the first school to totally computerise teaching of all subjects in the primary section.

In a golden period for stage plays, Ambi Rajagopal as the Secretary of Viveka Fine Arts captivated and enthralled audiences on stage through his 5000+ plays. And over the last 45 years, he has helped provide quality education to several thousands of children though his philosophy of ‘helping them aim for the best without being aggressively competitive’. The children at his school make friends through good manners and absorb ethical and moral values not as a dogma but as a way of life. And that gives a great deal of satisfaction for Ambi.

(Ambi Rajagopal passed away recently)