Veteran actress Rajasulochana dies aged 78
Veteran actress Rajasulochana died on March 5 at her Chennai residence in Madipakkam. She was 78 and is survived by her twin daughters and a son.
Rajasulochana acted in more than 275 films in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam in a five-decade career. Born as Rajeevasulochana on August 15, 1935 in Bezawada in Andhra Pradesh, a typo in her school record as Rajasulochana stuck for the rest of her life.
She learnt classical dances and joined a drama troupe.
In 1953 she debuted in the Kannada hit film Gunasagari. Soon her father, a railway officer, got transferred to Chennai and Rajasulochana began acting in Tamil films. Her first Tamil film was Pennarasi (1955) but she got recognition only from 1958 with films like Thai Piranthal Vali Pirakkum and Sarangadhara.
Rajasulochana’s dance experience helped her compete in an industry dominated by dancer actresses like M L Vasanthakumari and Travancore sisters Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini. She also established a dance academy Pushpanjali Nrithya Kala Kendram in Chennai in 1961 that functions today with great success.
Special effects expert dead
Award-winning film special effects expert S T Venki died of heart attack on March 7 while on holiday in Ooty.
He was 56 and is survived by wife and son.
Venki pioneered special effects in films like Kalapaani, Jeans, Kadhalan, Indian and many others. He won four national awards and was among the first in the film industry to shift from optical effects to computer graphics.
His memorable film sequences cover actor Prabhu Deva’s skeleton dance in the Muqabla song in Kadhalan (1994), actor Kamalhaasan’s face morphing into a lion’s in film Indian (1996), creating Aishwarya Rai’s computer clone in film Jeans (1998) and many others.
Fans and colleagues attended his funeral in Chennai on March 8.
Finance firm officials held
Two owners of a Coimbatore-based investment company were arrested for swindling Rs8bn of public money from Chennai last week. Vivek and Senthil Kumar, directors of Fine Futures Company, lured customers with multi-level marketing schemes promising astronomical returns.
More than 2,200 customers from Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Erode lost millions of rupees. The firm’s directors diverted the money to real estate, defaulted payments and finally absconded when their fraud was detected last year. However many of their marketing agents were threatened and kidnapped by investors to pay up.
CM imposes curbs on acid sale
Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa has announced that an ordinance would soon be passed to limit retail sale of acid in Tamil Nadu. The move comes after two women died in acid attack by their tormentors in Tamil Nadu in the past month.
On International Women’s Day, Jayalalithaa also presented Avvaiyar award to Dr V Shanta, the chairperson of Adyar Cancer Research Institute, for her selfless service to cancer patients.