Thiruvananthapuram: B. Mohanan Nair has been part of International Film Festival of Kerala, before Kerala State Chalachitra Academy was formed. Naturally, the 58-year-old is a moving history book on the festival. He would narrate to you on festivals organised by Kerala State Financial Development Corporation, and the ones after, if you were to travel with him. Once a minor lapse on part of Academy staff could have brought the festival to a standstill, had it not been for Mohanan Chettan, as he is known.
“The day when the award winners’ names are to be announced we find the festival office at Tagore Theatre locked. The stenographer had not turned up. The jury has a handwritten list. Because of the confidential nature of the list, they wouldn’t type it a day before. Finally I brought a stool, climbed the 6-feet-high wall of Tagore Theatre, jumped in and brought the typewriter out,” he says. And guess who typed the list out, without a stenographer around – actor Seema, who was also the jury member.
He shares anecdotes, unhurriedly, and you would have little idea that he is about to share a story about how he landed in the police station. “One night we started from Thiruvananthapuram, carrying lakhs of rupees needed at the festival, which would start the next evening in Kozhikode. Mid-way we were stopped by police at Medical College and we did not have the record to prove this was official money,” he said.
After a couple of hours at the station, Academy administrative officer brought the documents. “I was so tense carrying a suitcase full of money,” he said. He was 35 years when he started out. Even now he is one of the busiest charioteer at IFFK. Some nights, you would find him sleeping on the half walls on Tagore Theatre premises, waiting for IFFK night owls to complete their work. "I am not just a driver at IFFK. I am emotionally connected to the festival," he says.
