Actor-turned politician SSR dead
Veteran Tamil actor Sedapatti Suryanarayana Thevar Rajendran alias SSR, who was a contemporary of 1960s superstars M G Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan in films and politics, died of a lung infection in Chennai on October24.
He was 86 and is survived two wives, one of them actress Vijaykumari, and eight children. He acted in more than 500 films and won several awards. Among his memorable films are Avan Pithana, Poompuhar, Kumudham, Kalyaniku Kalyanam, Manohara, Ratha Kaneer and Kula Deivam.
In 1960, he joined politics under C N Annadurai’s rationalist Dravida Kazhagam (DK) party. He also represented the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party in the Rajya Sabha in 1970. Though a close friend of DMK president M Karunanidhi, he fell out with him when M G Ramachandran was expelled from the party. He joined Ramachandran’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and won from Andipatty constituency in 1981.
Throughout his film career, SSR strictly adhered to his Dravidian ideologies and never acted in mythological roles. This earned him the title of Latchiya Nadigar or actor of principles.
Clashes after poacher shot dead on border
Angry villagers set fire to the office of the forest department near Kolathur on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border near Salem protesting the shooting of a poacher Palani whose mutilated body was found a day earlier in the same area.
Palani’s body was found floating in the Cauvery river and villagers became angry when police refused to file his wife’s complaint. The Karnataka police had reportedly fired at Palani and his friends but villagers claimed that they had maimed his body and gouged his eyes.
The situation was brought under control after extra police were deployed. Meanwhile the Kolathur police have also complained that the rioters stole five rifles and an ivory tusk from their armoury.
Tamil novelist dies aged 89
Award winning veteran novelist and short story writer Rajam Krishnan died of old age at the Sri Ramachandra Medical College hospital in Porur in Chennai on October 20.
She was 89 and a childless widow. Rajam did not complete schooling and was married to an electrical engineer by the age of 15. He encouraged her to read and she began writing two years later.
She wrote on feminist issues covering the lives of poor farmers, salt pan workers, small time criminals, bandits and women labourers. Her novels, short stories and essays were later added to college syllabuses and research theses. She won many awards like the Sahitya Academy award in 1973, New York Herald Tribune Prize and Soviet Land Nehru award.
Pawnbroker murdered
Police are on the lookout for three men who robbed and murdered a 56-year-old pawnbroker at Valsaravakkam in Chennai last week.
The incident happened in the evening when Hariram was alone in his shop. Three men entered the shop and attacked him with knives and sickles. They then broke open his iron safe and stole about 100 gold sovereigns and silver worth Rs2.5mn.
Hariram’s son found him bleeding and rushed him to hospital where he gave a dying statement.
In a similar incident in Madurai, masked robbers entered a house at Subbulapuram and robbed a three-member family at gunpoint of 120 sovereigns of gold, household appliances and clothes that they loaded on to a mini-truck.
Investigations are underway in both cases.
