A little big surprise

There is a new little star in town and she has dazzled everyone with her quick performance on a popular TV show. The little star is Deeptha Keerthy, daughter of everyone’s favorite Ajay Kumar, fondly known as Guinness Pakru. She received tremendous applause for imitating the Baahubali villain Kalakeya.

While for the public it was only natural to see Deeptha on stage — something her dad excelled at — for Pakru and his family the entire episode was quite a surprise.

“She is very active on stage in school with dance and mimicry performances. One of her most prominent interests is painting; she used to draw from when she was very little. She has even painted me,” he laughs and adds, “Complete with my goggles and small hands.”

“The performance for the show was something I never expected. I took her to the studio just to show her shooting. The organisers had asked me if she is into performing and whether they can call her onstage. I said she will be too shy, so let’s avoid calling her onstage. In between the shoot, they spoke to her directly and she decided to go onstage! The Kalakeya act was something only Tini (Tom) has seen before, during one of our family outings.”

“It was a huge surprise for me that she performed in front of all these people and all the lights and cameras. Deeptha has gone viral now! She now wants to accompany me too all the shootings these days,” he says with pride and disbelief.

Just last month, Pakru gave us a memorable performance through the movie Punyalan Private Limited. He essayed A.K. Chandrakanth, a respectable bank manager, something very different from what he is usually given. “I did very few movies this year and the reason was that I was really yearning to do a good role.

The ones that came my way were pretty much the same ones I have been doing for years. The call to be a part of Punyalan 2 was quite unexpected. I was contacted when Ranjith Sankar and Jayasurya were sitting together discussing the project and was told the character is very different from anything I’ve done till date. I felt they were more confident about casting me for the role than me. Moreover, I think it clicks the most when we give the public a performance they are least expecting.”

Mimicry King Abi’s demise was a shock to Pakru, just like the rest of Kerala. Sharing a memory, he says, “This is a news that I still find hard to believe. During our growing up years in mimicry he was someone many of us looked up to and at some point even said ‘I want to be like him’. Every mimicry artist who was into imitating actors’ voice wanted to be like Abi ikka, that was the perfection with which he performed. He was everyone’s favorite. For everyone who loves mimicry, this is a huge loss.”