Who was Sathyendra? The Chennai cinephile who always had questions

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Actor and film critic Sathyendra, during his most recent film review of Suriya’s ‘Karuppu’

Life has all the answers. Only, you need to ask the right questions.

Sathyendra knew this well. This actor, theatre artiste, translator and film critic – and a well-known face in Chennai’s creative spaces – passed away on Thurday. In an unexpected wave of support, the city’s film and arts community rose to the occasion, collaborating to contact his family and coordinate for a funeral.

If you have ever been to a film festival or screening, or a literature panel discussion in the city, chances are you would have seen him. Usually clad in a kurta and carrying a jolna bag, typical of old-timers in the city, Sathyendra’s would routinely be the first hand to rise when the floor opened for the question and answer session.

His questions were mostly direct. Sometimes, even aggressive, thus making the panel members or the audience squirm. At times, the host would move on to other questions. But for Sathyendra, it did not matter. The questions had to be asked, and he would have to be the one asking them. “He loved to get attention,” points out filmmaker-writer K Hariharan, who cast Sathyendra in his Ezhavadhu Manidhan (1982), “He had a child-like quality and would not stay aloof. He never felt offended if his question was not answered; he was happy that he had asked it in the first place.”

That Sathyendra would – in the corridors of Chennai’s Max Mueller Bhavan or Alliance Francaise, places he would frequent to attend lectures and social events. If he was not there, he would be in the cinema halls, consuming films of all languages and offering an opinion on the techniques used in it; Sathyendra’s viral moment, in fact, came when he gave a scathing review for the Vijay-starrer Leoin his typical convincing style without mincing words.

But, where in Chennai did Sathyendra exactly live? Who were his family and friends? Those were answers people seldom knew then. They still don’t. “He was an erratic