THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: When the muddy waters came tumbling down his roof in the dead of the night, there wasn’t enough time to salvage all his treasure troves. Gopalakrishnan grabbed the top-most trunk and dashed out, just in time to escape the rage of the landslide. This time, Ponmudi had been ruthless in her anger and the water had not been calmed even when it reached the valleys of Palode, where Gopalakrishnan had built a small thatched house adjacent to his ration shop. When the water receded, the little hamlet was taken aback to see the nearby bus stand flooded with a truckload of magazines covered in slush. The village, too small for secrets to live long, was a little cross when it came to know that those were the film magazines which Babu Annan, as Gopalakrishnan was called, had been collecting and storing for about 60 years. “The only trunk I could save that night contained the song books (‘pattu pusthakam’) of Malayalam films. The rest, almost half a dozen, had film magazines in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. Even my wife and children did not know how big the collection was, until the magazines inundated the bus stand that morning in 1993,” remembers Gopalakrishnan, his voice soaked in a silent weep. Babu Annan’s collection of song books is a mini documentation of Malayalam cinema’s history. From the first movie with songs, ‘Jnanmbika’, released in 1940, it covers every single film that reached the theatres till ‘Manithali’, released in 1984. “I watched every Malayalam movie right on the release day until 1975, when I got married. After that, it could not always be on the first day, but, never was a movie missed. I was disappointed with the movies of 1980s and after ‘Manithali’, I haven’t gone to the theatres. By then, I had collected 2,000 song books,” says this ardent fan of Sathyan. Yet, he has never stopped his practice of documenting details regarding movies. The release date, direction, banner, music direction, lyrics and cast - everything goes down in black and white in the scores of notebooks that often became reference books for institutions like Chalachitra Academy and writers on the trail of Malayalam cinema. In a worn out notebook, on the page titled, - ‘Balan’, 1938, January 19 - Babu Annan writes, “the news reel showing the birthday celebrations of the Travancore King, Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, screened before the movie”. The record is promptly updated and can be referred to for the latest release till date. Gopalakrishnan’s siblings had all managed to land government jobs and are well-settled. The obsession with the reel world had cost him his studies after matriculation and the prospects of a secure job, because, his stints outside the State could never last beyond the next release of a Malayalam film.“I could not think of missing out on a movie or a ‘pattu pusthakam’. In fact, I learned to read Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, just to be able to read the film magazines in those languages so I could know what was happening there.”Audio records of songs are also part of his collection and Babu Annan says the number of songs he has saved in CD format would come to around 50,000. Many film directors, including Balachanda Menon and Sreekumaran Thampi, have sought the help of Babu Annan to get copies of lyrics and songs from their movies. A good number of books based on the history of Malayalam films and film music have depended on his records. He would extend any help short of parting with his ‘pattu pusthakams’, he says. And yet, no honour has ever found its way to Babu Annan’s frugal household. The way, Babu Annan sees it,“I cannot stop doing this, because, this is the vocation I was chosen for.” His moments of gratification are those like the day C A Seethalakshmy, the lead actress in ‘Jnanmika’ (1940), came in search of him to hear the song she had sung and enacted. She was ninety then and had not heard the song in more than fifty years. Babu Annan remembers that she was almost in tears listening to his record and had left with a full heart.
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