'Suresh Gopi's shocking decision left young Rahman in tears'; Director Viji Thampi on 'Kaalal Pada' shooting days

'Kaalal Pada' is a 1989 thriller film directed by Viji Thampi. Prominent writer Ranjith wrote the screenplay for the movie starring Jayaram, Suresh Gopi, Rahman and Ratheesh. The film turned out to be a surprise hit at the theatres. And now, while reminiscing over the shooting days that happened more than 30 years back, Viji Thampi shared a peculiar incident, through Safari Channel’s special program.

The final schedule of the movie was set to be filmed in Kozhikode. It included a fight sequence between Rahman and Suresh Gopi. The scene had Rahman beating Suresh Gopi, which left the latter furious and he outright refused to act.

Viji Thampi:

Suresh Gopi was the second villain in the movie. He was at the time, mostly doing roles of antagonist in movies which was very well accepted among people. It was during 'Kaalal Pada' days that he received a chance to act in veteran MT Vasudevan Nair’s ‘Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha’. After this, Suresh started to come out from the sphere of antagonist roles and started roping in machismo hero roles in movies.

The shoot was set up in front of the Kozhikode guest house. On that day, Suresh approached writer Ranjith and in his peculiar way talked about his second thoughts on doing the stunt role with Rahman. “Ranji, kindly avoid the sequence where Rahman beats me. I can’t do that”. This left writer Ranjith perplexed since it is well-known in the film circles about Suresh’s emotional temperament; which is such fragile that a trivial incident could hurt him badly.

Thyagarajan master was the stunt choreographer in the film. I prevailed upon him to direct the fight in a way that it should be Jayaram who would be fighting Suresh Gopi, while Siddique and Rahman could fight other villains. I also pleaded with the master to not reveal the incident to Rahman since it could emotionally torment the budding actor.

But Rahman was a clever feller and he easily got to know the situation from the whole dissonance. Beyond being clever, Rahman was a through-and-through gentleman, who made no fuss but completed the shoot. The next day, Rahman came to our room in Maharani Lodge to bid goodbye as he was on his way to Madras. While engaging in candor, Rahman suddenly started crying which turned into an emotional outburst. Even I couldn’t hold my tears seeing him cry.

“It was the biggest humiliation in my life. It was only for you that I decided to complete the shoot, or else….” Rahman told me amidst sobbing.