More than a director, A.K. Sajan is a storywriter, who has a knack for narrating a story in an interesting way. Sitting in his favourite room of his house near Karukappally junction in Kochi, Sajan shares the tale of his house ‘Parppidam’.
He started out with the idea that the house should be near to the city. “Though we are from Perinthalmanna, my parents moved to Kochi as part of their job when I was a child. We have lived in many houses in this district all these years. When I became active in films, I felt it was time to settle down and I started scanning through properties to find a plot to build a house,” he recollects.
During the hunt, he came across a five cent land at Karukappally. “I bought this house around 25 years ago. In fact, only the basic structure of the house was completed when I saw this property. At that time, this area was neither this busy nor so developed. I loved the place and said yes,” says Sajan, who has yet another interesting anecdote to share about the house.
“The advance payment for this house was given by late actor-director Venu Nagavally. At that that time, we were planning a film, which failed to take off. He was with me when I came here. So when I decided to buy this property, I gave him the money and requested him to give it to the owner as an advance,” he remembers.
Sajan points out that he could shift to this house along with his family within six months. “It was a small, normal, house for a family. When we came here, the by-road to this house was very small as it is now. I had a scooter then and had no plans to buy a car. So I did not have any reservations. It was hardly six years back that I bought a car. Even then I chose a Maruthi Swift, small enough to enter this road,” says the person behind the screenplays of Butterflies, Kashmeeram, Crime File, Meenathil Thalikettu, Chinthamani Kolacase, Red Chillies and the recently released Sathya. He was the director of Mammootty’s Puthiyaniyamam and Prithviraj’s Stop Violence.
Till six years back, it was a 1000 square foot house. “On the first floor, there were just two bed rooms, a dining hall, a drawing room and a kitchen. One room was used as my writing room, but later, when it was given to my son Sachin, I felt it would be a disturbance for him to keep my books in that room. Then I decided to build a room on the terrace. Though my initial plan was to build a room, later I developed it as a big — 1000 sq ft hall, which is my writing-reading space,” says the director, who lives there with his wife and son.
Sajan points out that reworking/reconstruction is not a new thing in that house. “In past 25 years, I have done many reconstructions on both the floors. Though this house is named ‘Parppidam’, I always refer it as ‘Panitheeratha Veedu’,” he laughs.
