TV entrepreneur is fondly remembered

CHENNAI: “I was one of Kailasam’s roommates in Iowa in 1986. Although I was never interested in films, he drew me into the world. We even cooked together. The one dish that he made, quite regularly, was thayir sadam (curd rice),” wrote Sarosh Kuruvilla on a paper pasted on a blackboard hung at the entrance of Spaces in Besant Nagar.
Friends and relatives of Bala Kailasam, son of veteran director K Balachander, had gathered at the venue to on Tuesday to honour him.He died of pneumonia and lung disease at a hospital in Chennai on August 15. Kailasam, who was 53 years old, headed a production house Min Bimbangal.
“He was unhappy dealing with the tension between making films he wanted to make and doing the uninteresting but necessary work to make Min Bimbangal successful,” Kuruvilla said.
Filmmaker K Balachander stepped onto the dais with the help of two people. He didn’t speak, but spent the time listening to the speeches. “What the father did in cinema, son did in television. But, Kailasam was an unsung hero. He didn’t get the due that he deserved,” said Chanakya, who worked with the father as well as son for more than two decades.
Even though Kailasam directed many documentaries and produced a number of TV serials, he always wanted to do something new.
“Even as a student in Guindy Engineering College, he was like that. Holding a black-and-white camera, he would roam around. He would take pictures and develop them himself. He always wanted something different from every click,” said Suresh K, who was his classmate in the late 1970s.