Viewer's Voice | Venu, Herbal Pharmacist
3,243 views · Published 12 November 2018 · 2:18 · Indexed 18 October 2026
Channel: Film Companion South · 2018 · Entertainment
Venu, born and raised in Mylapore, has been in the herbal medicines business for the last 45 years. The first movie he ever watched was the Gemini Ganesan-starrer Karpagam (1963) in Chennai's Wellington theatre, back when he was just six or seven. Tickets back then, were just 25 paise. He recalls Shanti theatre being the only 'A' class theatre. During the intermission, theatres did not serve popcorn...the options were limited to butter biscuits and tea. Vendors would walk into the auditorium with a tray and start selling snacks during the break. His grandfather was the family member that would encourage everyone to watch films. If shorts were the chosen attire for Tamil films, Venu says he would switch to trousers if the film was an English one. Venu remembers struggling to get his hands on a ticket for 16 Vayadhinile, the day it released. One of his teachers, on seeing him there, asked Venu to hand over the ticket. 'How can a 15 year-old be watching 16 Vayadhinile?' he asked. As he sees it, films back then were far more realistic with stories that were taken from real life. In this fortnightly, we trace the story of fans and the films that have made them. #ViewersVoice #Documentary #Cinema Visit us at http://filmcompanion.in Do Like, Share, Comment & Subscribe to our channel. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/FCsubscribe Follow Us On: https://www.facebook.com/filmcompanion https://www.twitter.com/filmcompanion http://instagram.com/filmcompanion The Film Companion is a web channel intended to promote Indian cinema through films review, interviews, discussions, video essays and analytical compilations. It is intended primarily for the purpose of encouraging informed discussions, criticism and review of cinema and towards such purpose the programs use short extracts of cinematograph films, sounds recording and photographic works. These clips and extracts are of a minimal nature and the use is not intended to interfere in any manner with their commercial exploitation of the compete work by the owners of the copyright. The use of works are in compliance with the fair dealing exception provided under Sec. 52 of the Copyright Act, and we asset our use of the works under the exception provided for criticism and review.
