AN INTERVIEW WITH MALA MANYAN

Mala Manyan is the Chief Executive Officer of Seventh Channel Communications, the largest television production house in Chennai, which was established by Manicam Narayanan in 1985. Mala has been associated with Seventh Channel for the last 15 years and has in the due course developed expertise in compering television shows, interviewing film personalities, photography, editing and production.

A face to face with Mala reveals a dedicated and hard working person who sets very high standards not only for her self, but also for Seventh Channel.

It wasn’t a planned entry… It just started like any other graduate looking for a job. I had just then lost my mother, I did not want to sit at home idle. I went to the Gulf for a year, to spend time with my sister’s family. I did not like the monotonous life there. At that time my sister also wanted to come back here, as she wanted her children to learn music and dance, for which there is no scope in Muscat. So I came back with my sister and her kids to Chennai. Once I was back, I asked my best friend Nithya to look out for a job for me. She was the one who gave me the lead about Seventh Channel, which was a new company then, Mr Narayan had just opened the new office at Mount Road, and he was looking for additional staff. Mr Narayan interviewed me, and asked me when I could start. It was the 12^th of January, and I said tomorrow. He said, but I thought tomorrow is supposed to be Bogi Pongal. I said, when it comes to work, I do not believe in looking out for a day. I can start tomorrow. Probably, that one statement gave him a lot of confidence in me that when it comes to work, nothing will stop me from doing it. So from day one, it got established that if there is work, I would do it. Taking up responsibilities came to me very naturally, because I had been doing that at home, even before my mother passed away.

When I started, I was the only girl in the office. All the boys used to work on the video, and I was taking care of the counter work. They had just put in the QSS machine, at the Rani Seethai Hall. It was quite a sensational thing. The photographs used to come out and people would just throng around to watch their photographs coming out, it was an exciting thing in those days. Sometime in 1985…one-hour photo itself was sensational, and to see their own photographs coming out was really thrilling. It was very interesting, because I was meeting too many people. People would come in to give their film rolls. So I wanted to know more about photography, how the film is developed? What goes into it? How do we get prints like that? Slowly I started getting into these details. I am not a very curious person. I would not ask any questions, I am not used to probing somebody. Even with my closest friends, when they make a statement, I don’t ask the next question at all. I will wait for them to come out, or leave it at that. By observation I like to pick up things. That’s how I learnt photography the basics of photography. I was sent for training to Japan.

Being an interviewer was accidental. It just happened that having learnt the technical details, I once went for the shooting of one of K Balachander’s interviews. Chitra Lakshman was supposed to do the interview, and she could not turn up. We couldn’t ask Balachander to wait. I was just told to do the interview on the spot. I did not know anything about sitting in front of the camera, about how to do an interview and I did not know much about films either. Anyway, I decided to give it a try. They said, its very simple, you just have to question him on some of his films. I just grabbed a piece of paper and noted down the name of some of his films. I had not watched any of them, except for Apoorva Ragangal. The interview turned out well probably because I did not know much, and my questions were based on his films, on his films being woman based etc which were not very usual, not what he would normally expect from a reporter. The questions had a different angle. For him it was a different interview, wherein he could talk a lot. So that made the interview very interesting. So from my first interview I started believing that too much of talking is not good. I would always want others to talk. I would like to sharpen the question to as short as possible and I believe in highlighting the person’s good qualities and not try to prove that I am very intelligent and I know this or that about them. I would never talk about other people’s personal lives.

Being in front of the camera was not my job, basically I am an administrator, and I still continue to do that. Instead of finding an artist to interview and finding another artist to come and do the interview, I did it myself. It was not a planned entry.

It’s a very nice feeling actually. It was a baby that had just started walking, when I entered. It has grown from a small baby to an adult and I have grown along with it.

Probably my training in Japan helped me. If Sony and Panasonic are the national leaders, it’s only because of loyalty and the way they work. I am sorry to say this, but the fact is in India that is not there at all. Because the minute they learn something, they want to jump over for monetary gains. I always think money can come today or tomorrow, but not people. Also another attitude that I do not like is when people say that… "ok, I am earning Rs 1000/- every month, for this salary it is enough to do this much work". That is how most people are working nowadays, and it is really sickening. Our company does not believe that so and so person should do only this or that work. We do not have that kind of restriction at all.

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