When Nutty hit the dance floor
I was always sure about cinematographer Nutty’s acting abilities, and thought he acquitted himself quite fairly in his debut venture, “Naalai.” But I was always curious to find out if he could dance as well too; in his first film, he had no such scenes as the character he played sported a broken leg for most part of the movie.
So the invitation from director Mahesh to visit the sets of “Chakraviyugam” (this is the official spelling, had got it wrong in the earlier piece) came at the apt time. Mahesh said they were shooting their first song, scored by composer Karthik Raja, during the weekend. The incentive was that it was an item number, featuring Mumbai dancer Malishka.
It was a dream come true for me (actually it turned out to be more of a wet dream).
The shooting was on in full swing at the fourth floor of AVM Studios when I landed up there. 
The board outside the fourth floor said “Central Jail,” so I was in a bit of a quandary (an item number inside a jail?) but the pretty dancers hanging outside convinced me that I was in the right place. Inside the “Central Jail,” a set of a pub had been erected and choreographer Shanti, who had worked on “Naalai” also, was busy shouting a million instructions to her dancers. “Feel the song. Follow the movements properly. Move the table to the side of the frame. Ask the people sitting on the table to move their body to the song. And everybody smile during the take,” she went on.
Nutty was sitting on a side table, sipping beer. 
He was watching the dance assistants, who were showing him his steps. (Well, if I was stranded in the middle of a dance floor, even I would have needed a couple of pegs to begin dancing.) Nutty was a picture of concentration, taking in and perhaps mentally rehearsing his movements.
A guy sporting a stylish haircut and a trendy beard waved out to me from the middle of the dance floor. 
Lucky bugger, I thought, to be vitally positioned in the midst of a bevy of beauties (who I was told later were flown in from Mumbai along with the item girl). Though he looked every bit a professional dancer, I thought his face looked familiar. Then realisation hit me; it was one of Mahesh’s assistant directors Harish. 
The shot completed, Harish came over for a chat. I had my questions ready. How did he land up in the middle of the dance floor? And how come he was allowed to cosy up to Malishka? And was he assisting Mahesh or had he changed jobs to become choreographer Shanti’s assistant?
Harish just laughed. “This was Mahesh’s idea. He just asked me to change my clothes and join the crowd on the dance floor. Anyways, this is just for a couple of days till the song is shot. After that, I go back to my old job as assistant director.” 
He then wanted to take a look at the pictures I had snapped. “If my girlfriend sees this, I am dead. When I told her I was going to dance, the first thing she wanted to know was if any girls were also going to dance. Initially, I said there were none, but later I said there were two or three girls. If she sees these snaps, that will be the end of my career in films.” I volunteered to mail the snaps to his girlfriend’s e-mail id (which he refused to provide, I must add). I found out later that I was not alone in this endeavour; Mahesh had also clicked many snaps on his mobile phone for the same purpose. 
Mahesh, I think, has some psychic capabilities — he has an eye for talent and just knows how to select a particular person for a particular job. When he started “Naalai,” the main roles were to be portrayed by actors Richard and Prroshant Narayannan. But when the latter got bogged down with some other work, he asked Nutty (who was till then working as the cinematographer) to put on makeup and step into the role. Which he did with aplomb, I must say. Similarly, till I watched Harish shaking a leg with the others, I never knew that he was so good at dancing.
By then, it was time for Nutty to jive. Before he was called for the shot, I spotted him moving to the bar to down a couple of swigs of beer. In the shot, he had to get up, move a couple of steps forward, grab Malishka’s hand, and then dance with her. The first couple of takes did not go off properly. 
Both Mahesh and Shanti, who were intently peering into the monitor, were not happy. Shanti shouted more instructions. “Nutty, don’t be shy. Grab Malishka properly. Malishka, move your body more closely to Nutty’s. …” Another rehearsal was called for, and in the next shot, everybody got their steps right. Methinks by then, the beer had started taking effect, helping Nutty to overcome his inhibitions. (Much later, Mahesh and the rest of the crew told me that Nutty was a great dancer, but not in front of the camera.)
The camera was being set up for the next shot. Shanti was again barking orders. She showed the dancers their steps, and asked them to rehearse it.
After the lights and camera were set up, Malishka was called in and the dancers given their positions and props, namely beer bottles. As the music picked up tempo and everybody was gyrating to the pulsating music, the dancers in the back started splashing beer on those in the front, including Harish and Malishka. The shot though was not okayed, prompting Nutty to comment: “What a waste of good beer. We might as well have drank all that beer. I hope they okay the next take otherwise more beer will be wasted.” 
The next take was okayed and the director called for pack up. Unluckily though, nobody could have a go at the rest of the beer as the bottles were required for the remaining dance sequences the next day too.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
WELL just a few questions, who is this nutty??
am i missing something here, but sorry havent heard his name.
by the way, funny article ( if it was meant to be funny that is)
that’s him
http://imdb.com/name/nm0836991/
but the filmography needs to be revised now!
- Ritchik, Nutty is a famous cinematographer… he appears in the No Smoking Blog, handled the cinematography for Black Friday, and among other movies for… Vinod Chopra’s last movie (Eklavya) and has been frequently mentioned on PFC. He is now doing his second movie as a lead actor in Tamil Cinema.
hey thnaks for the info.
i now do recall where i heard his name.
some of those pretty dancers look somewhat depressed/knackered and tired in those photos.
Hi,
Why is this under Exclusives? Just curious- is this going to be a from-the-sets blog?
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