Chennai :
Exactly two months to the day he lost his mentor K Balachander, Kamal Haasan lost the man who directed his first film as an adult. R C Sakthi, who directed an 18-year-old Kamal and Srividya in a movie about sexually transmitted diseases, Unarvugal, in 1972, passed away on Monday afternoon. He breathed his last at the SRM Institutes of Medical Sciences in Vadapalani, where he had suffered a massive heart attack at 10 pm on Sunday night and passed away at 2.55 pm on Monday.
At 76, Sakthi may have appeared as one of those active, old directors who still had a keen eye on cinema – with few worries in the world. But his doctors have a different story to tell. A nephrologist who had treated him at SIMS said, “For over four years now, he has been on dialysis twice a week. His kidneys were in really bad shape and his sugar levels were extremely high. Recently, we found that his heart wasn’t pumping blood quite actively, with an ejection fraction rate of only 30 per cent. He needed surgery, but with all the medical complications, there was simply nothing we could do.” They had almost lost him when his second kidney failed in 2011, at Vijaya Hospital, but he fought back and survived against massive odds – much like his cinematic career. In 2013, 20 years after his last feature film Pathinipenn, he made a short film featuring his grandchildren with a song sung by Kamal in the soundtrack.
He had been in and out of the hospital several times for his kidney and heart issues – but on Sunday, it was diarrhoea and high fever that had brought him there.
A flustered, almost teary-eyed Kamal rushed to the hospital by 5 pm and paid his respects to a man who was much more than just a director to him. “He was a brother… a part of my family… a true friend,” said Kamal, struggling to find the words that best describe Sakthi. “But above all, he was a true fan. He remained one of the most ardent fans that any true actor could have and his loss is one that will take me some time to accept,” he rasped, before leaving the hospital with Gauthami.
After making Unarvugal – a film that was held up for four years because of its radical content by the censor board – he did Dharma Yuddham with Rajinikanth and films like Manakannaku with Vijayakant, before tapering off into small projects. With his roots firmly planted in theatre, he had come to Chennai from a small village near Paramakudi and joined Villupaatu Subbhu Aarumugham’s troupe, before graduating to cinema. He remained a close friend to both Kamal and Rajini.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / February 24th, 2015