The first movie to be released by Ananda Films was an M.G.Ramachandran starrer "Andaman Kaidhi" and the founders managed to stay afloat thereafter. The founding partners of the venture P.M.Krishnamurthy and N.A.Rasheed were known to be among the top movie distributors of the undivided Coimbatore and Nilgiris territory. P.M.Krishnamurthy and his elder brother P.M.Subramaniam were born to Mahadeva Iyer and Lakshmi of Puthukode in the neighbourhood of Palakkad. Puthukode is famous for its Annapoorneshwari temple and a number of successful Indians hail from this heritage village. Vadhyar Boats of Mumbai and Veeraraghavan, the builder who lived in Coimbatore are from Puthukode.
The brothers lost their father during their boyhood and were brought up by their landowning wealthy brother in law Nagappa Iyer and sister Vengulakshmi Ammal for some years in Puliyur near Karur. Thereafter they moved to Trichy under the care of their other sister Chellammal and her husband Venkatarama Iyer who happened to be working for the Indian Railways Restaurant as a cook. Both of them joined the famous Mayavaram Lodge in Trichy as apprentices subsequently.
They used to stay and work in the lodge in order to take care of the education of their younger brother Ramu and eventually they became good cooks before leaving the place and moving over to Chennai. While at Chennai, P.M.Subramaniam and P.M.Krishnamurthy met a number of people during their tenure as freelance cooks and they got to work as supervisors in a cafe for sometime. It was at this point that the cafe owner Sivaraman introduced the hard working brothers to the theatre group N.S.K. Nadaga Sabha promoted by Kalaivanar N.S.Krishnan and the same functioned near the Central Station at Chennai. Their job was to procure and process materials, cook and serve the troupe on an everyday basis. This went on for a couple of years at a time when the same play was shown for long periods.
N.S.Krishnan started making movies from the Central Studios in Coimbatore and therefore P.M.Subramaniam and P.M.Krishnamurthy shifted to Coimbatore in order to cater to the requirements of the producer N.S.Krishnan and his team. It was a time when very many special items were served to the leading stars while the rest of the team were given routine food. Unfortunately N.S.Krishnan got caught in the Lakshmikanthan imbroglio and therefore the Puthukode brothers had to move over to Jupiter Pictures as canteen in charge on a contract basis.
They had become superb cooks by then and their kichadi, badusha, mysorepa, special chutneys, thenga sadham and kadamba sadham had become famous with the Jupiter team in Singanallur. M.G.Ramachandran and K.Karunanidhi began their career at Coimbatore those days. M.S.Viswanathan used to work in Jupiter and eventually became a famous music director because of his experiences in Coimbatore.
The producer M.M.A.Chinnappa Devar was a stunt artist and MGR used to take rest in the kitchen area while waiting for his turn. Many of the actors had to wait for their chance on an everyday basis. In fact the music composing room was near the kitchen. The studio was founded by R.K.Ramakrishnan Chettiar (major partner), P.A.Raju Chettiar, C.N.Venkatapathy Naidu and S.Bheemiah Chetty and was later acquired by the maverick entrepreneur B.Rangaswamy Naidu of Rajalakshmi Mills.
Destiny introduced the Puthukode brothers to N.A.Rasheed who used to carry the provisions ordered by them by cycle from Thyagi Kumaran Market. The owners' son was the owner of Central Biriyani Hotel, Velayutham. Eventually Rasheed and the Puthukode brothers became good friends with Rasheed and he used to watch movie shoots in their company. N.A.Rasheed had meanwhile joined N.S.K.Nadaga Sabha as an apprentice and even acted in a few movies, the most memorable being the tailor role he donned in "Nalla Thambhi".
The Puthukode brothers suffered a bit when Jupiter Pictures slowed down their work for sometime and they decided to get into the food business on a permanent basis. The moved to Parlakamedi in the northern districts and took the facility belonging to one Sathyanarayana on lease and it was there that the brothers earned well due to their hard work. One P.K.Varier of Lipton Tea used to stand in as a guarantor for them in Kolkatta those days. It was a place for shandies and this tiny station shaped their destiny.
The venture was named "Lakshmi Cafe" and it was taken up by the eldest brother P.M.Vaidyanathan who ran it until the year 1967. At last their friend N.A.Rasheed came to them and persuaded them over a 6 month period to take up film distribution. Finally Ananda Films was formed in the year 1952 with P.M.Krishnamurthy and N.A.Rasheed taking up 50% of the share each. The first movie "Andaman Kaidhi" was bought for Rs.55,000 and their landlord Sathyanarayana had lent them half the amount those days. The name Ananda Films came from the name of Udumalai Narayanakavirayar's grandson Anandan as suggested by the famous man.
Ananda Films released a little over 350 movies between the years 1952 and 1982. They released all the Devar Films movies from the year 1956. "Thaiykku Pin Tharam" to "Aattukkara Alamelu" was released by them. In all it was 73 movies by Devar Films. "We distributed the maximum number of MGR movies then and also released Sivaji movies in a big way. Movies like "Thanga Padhakkam" were shown through us. While MGR movies were released through Raja Theatres, Royal was for Sivaji movies. Movies like "Irumbhu Thirai", "Vanji Kottai Valiban" etc., by Gemini were released by us.
MGR came and stayed at the TVS Guest house in the year 1963 during the movie "Neethikku Pin Paasam" and he watched part of an English movie at Rainbow theatres with P.M.Krishnamurthy and N.A.Rasheed. Movies like "Mahadevi", "Thaai Sollai Thattathey","Thrisoolam", "Thiruvarutselvar", "Thillana Mohanambal" were brought to Coimbatore by us. Movies by Kovai Thambhi, K.R.Vijaya, AVM were also taken up by us.
The artist N.Velayutham of Cine Arts made a shining bust cut out of Sivaji for Raja Theatre for the movie "Thiruvarutselvar" and it was 30 feet tall. "Engirindho Vandhal" starring Sivaji Ganesan and J.Jayalalithaa was a hit in our bouquet. My foster father P.M.Krishnamurthy brought me up and he used to go to Guruvayoor and offer prayers to Lord Krishna on the first of every Tamil month. He was quite close to Devar and MGR. A number of movies done by director Sridhar was also dealt by us, "stated Venkataraman, from the founding family.
"The actor K.Balaji was a successful producer through his unit "Sujatha" and we released a number of his movies. M.M.A.Chinnappa Devar used to ask us to undertake work on his behalf at the Marudamalai Murugan temple and treat the money so spent as an advance for his movies. He redid the steps to the temple and the lights too. The wiring had to drawn from Kalveerampalayam over 55 years ago MGR came to switch on the lights. Some movies by A.L.Srinivasan, Kannadasan and Mukta Srinivasan were brought to Coimbatore by Ananda Films.
A number of shields and momentoes were given to us by the producers of the successful movies. We used to receive them from the top dignitaries those days. Father was close to A.P.Nagarajan and did much with him together. A number of movies came up because of his involvement and these details have been in the private domain for years. Not many will know that Revathi Films was promoted by N.S.Krishnan. Nadigavel M.R.Radha was known to us for years.
Our office used to be on the first floor of a building opposite to the Railway Station and Trichy Tutorial College was our neighbour. Our families have lived in Tatabad for decades. Our partnership deed was drawn by Auditor N.R.Natarajan and his son N.R.Ravishankar continues to be our Auditor even now. Its been a long journey from Puthukode to Mayavaram Lodge to Ananda Films for P.M.Krishnamurthy and P.M.Subramaniam.They had worked really hard in life and scaled great heights during the golden years of Tamil cinema. The brothers knew everyone in the filmworld during their times and were able to achieve quite a bit due to their intuition and hard work. The partnership of N.A.Rasheed and P.M.Krishnamurthy was a sign of communal harmony those days," added Venkataraman from the family of Ananda Films.
