From Kerala to Kollywood: Prajin Padmanabhan

Prajin Padmanabhan is all manliness in his recent photo shoot. He sports a thick long beard accentuated by his jet black hair locked into a neat ponytail. To trace his origins from sheer looks is a tough game. It’s deceptive. From the moment he picks the call for an interview, impeccable Tamil flows in from the other end. Language helps neither. Also, for about a decade, he has been landing back-to-back title roles in Kollywood. The latest addition to his portfolio is as one of the lead men in Samuthirakani-starrer Aan Devathai and another film Kundrathile Kumaranukku Kondattam.

Other than some childhood vacations and family outings during festive occasions to his home town Balussery in Kozhikode, Prajin doesn’t have deep-seated memories about Kerala. The most we can expect are certain roles he played in a bunch of Mollywood movies beginning from The Thriller to Appooppanthadi in addition to his Malayali wife, Sandra. But once he’s being quizzed about the Kerala connection, he speaks Malayalam laced in Tamil accent.   “My family got shifted to Tamil Nadu when I was a toddler as my dad worked with police department. In my childhood, we came to Kerala during long vacations which I spent with my brother and playmates. Cricket was our pastime. Now I take my family during occasions like Vishu and Onam. That’s it,” says Prajin.

Prajin’s career began as a VJ in Sun Music, which straightaway landed him in K-Town. In both big and small screens, he became a popular face among Tamil audience. That ‘small’ screen camaraderie with Samuthirakani has grown into the level of Aan Devathai, where the actor could be seen as a techie. “That was a tele-serial Ithu Oru Kathal Kathai in Vijay TV. I played lead and he directed about 10 to 15 episodes. We have been thick friends for the past 16 years,” he says.

Be it Malayalam or Tamil, Prajin would thank his VJing skills for enabling him to render long-winded dialogues. “My first was a cameo in Dishyum, where I had to flawlessly deliver a two-page dialogue. This factor made me the the director’s choice probably. In Malayalam also, I had a one-page lengthy dialogue in The Thriller that I handled without prompting. That time, I wrote down the lines in English and mugged up the entire thing.” In Malayalam, he wishes to be choosy about roles. Three more movies with Prajin are getting ready for release in Tamil including Benny Thomas’ Engeyum Naan Iruppen, Mirandavan and a Kishore Kumar-starrer.