Curious Vedanth
A fireplace chat hosted by a curious secondary school kid. Every few weeks, I interview different guests about their lives.
Curious Vedanth
Amala Akkineni: From Silver Screen Star to Animal Welfare - A Journey of Passion and Purpose
Season 6 Episode 20: From navigating the tides of a naval family upbringing to the serene corridors of Kalakshetra, the remarkable Ms. Amala Akkineni joins me, Curious Vedanth, for an intimate recounting of her evolution from a dancer to a silver screen sensation and a beacon of animal welfare. Her story is a tapestry of vivid experiences, where every relocation and each mentor's guidance is woven into the rich fabric of her life's work. As we sit in the historic Annapurna Studios, Amala walks us through her transformative years, shedding light on the profound connections between her artistic passions and the empathetic drive that would catapult her into the realms of animal welfare.
Our journey doesn't halt at Amala's illustrious film career, which saw her deliver stunning performances across five languages, but rather accelerates towards the heartfelt inception of the Blue Cross of Hyderabad. With tales from her cinematic endeavors to the compassionate endeavors off-screen, Amala offers us a glimpse into the relentless pursuit of a cause that resonates deeply with her soul. Supported by her renowned spouse, Nagarjuna, she paints a vivid picture of the trials, triumphs, and joys of championing the voiceless. This episode isn't just about the glitz of showbiz; it's a tribute to the enduring spirit of giving back.
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Hi, I am Curious Vedant and welcome to the hundred and fortyth episode of my podcast. I am recording this very special episode at the legendary Anupurna Studios in Hyderabad, india. I am here to interview the legendary, award-winning actress, bharath Nantiam Dancer and the top animal activist of the country, ms Amala Akineni, the director of Anupurna College of Film and Media and the co-founder of Blue Cross of Hyderabad, one of the top animal welfare organizations in India. Hi, ms Akineni, welcome to my show.
Speaker 2:Hi Vedant, thank you for that lovely introduction. Really appreciate it and welcome to Anupurna Studios, thank you thank you.
Speaker 1:I've been to Anupurna Studios before, but this is something different. It's really cool.
Speaker 2:Well, this is a classroom actually, and it's a screening classroom where we watch what the students have made, and so it's really cool and fun. We sit here and we discuss their projects. That's nice, that's fun, so congratulations. This is your hundred and fortyth podcast.
Speaker 1:I was told and, yeah, it's been a journey for me. I've enjoyed it, Nice. And how is Singapore? Singapore is good. I really enjoy it. I just moved to schools recently and I'm really enjoying it, Nice, nice. So through this interview, we'll talk about your journey as an artist, your efforts to improve the lives of animals and your role as an educator at Anupurna College. To start off, can you tell me a little about your childhood? What drew you to dancing and art?
Speaker 2:My parents were in the Navy, my dad was in the Indian Navy and my mom had been a naval officer and my dad moved around a lot. They keep getting posted in different naval parts of India naval centers, and because of that I went to boarding school. I had seen Bharatanatyam being performed on stage and I thought it was the most beautiful art form and I wanted to learn it, and so my parents sent me to a place called Kalakshitra in Chennai and there I had some wonderful teachers and it's a beautiful campus. I studied in school there and then went to college and all along I had dance classes.
Speaker 2:In the evenings the campus was full of animals. There were like 14 community dogs and there were cats and there were cows and there were goats and lots and lots of birds. Like you see the forest here. It was a beautiful forest, like trees, and there were lakes when it rained and a lot of daft chicks would come and have babies there snakes, and so I really grew up in a beautiful campus which had a lot of nature around it, and I learned to be very comfortable with animals. My dance teacher, sharda Hoffman, and her husband, peter Hoffman, had a very deep influence on me and they used to encourage me to be kind to animals. Rukmini Devi, our founder herself. She spoke beautifully about helping animals and I think all of that really left a deep impression on me, and I used to help all the animals on the campus. I rescued my first animal when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. Yeah, so that's how it started.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Kala Kshetra sounds like a very, very nice place. It was.
Speaker 2:It's in Chennai, right.
Speaker 1:That's right. How did you arrive at the decision to go there? Were there others among your peers who also went there to or, if not went there, pursued a similar career, and also did you have the support of your parents?
Speaker 2:My parents were very supportive. In fact, I was learning dance in Vizag in the Naval base with all my friends, and my dance teacher told my mother this girl is gifted, why don't you take her to some serious training? I've taught her what I know and she guided her to take me to Kala Kshetra my mother, of course. I was the youngest child. I have an older brother and an older sister. She was hesitant to send me to boarding school so young. So she took me to Chennai and she said let her see, and if she really likes it, if she decides and she wants to go, then we will send her. And that's what happened.
Speaker 2:I went, my mother took me. It was the summer holidays and I walked around the campus and I thought I was in heaven because it was so different from a crowded city the tall trees and all the birds and this open space and the dance class. And I just love to dance. So every evening, three to five, we had our dance class, or three, 15 to five o'clock, we had our dance class and it was the most magical thing for me and I said, yes, I want to go. And my parents packed my suitcase for me and sent me off to Kala Kshetra.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that you, and it sounds like you had a wonderful time there. I did.
Speaker 2:I did. You know it's normal to miss home the first few days, but then I made friends and there were girls from all over the world. They were from all different parts of India, from different countries of the world and the minute I made friends I was okay and I got over my homesickness and I spent almost 10 years in that hostel. I went to school and I went to college and I made friends. Today, whenever I go to Chennai or any part of India and one of my hostel friends are there, it's like I'm going home. It's so nice to see them all.
Speaker 1:That's nice. And you mentioned that Rukmini Devi Arun Del was the founder of Kala Kshetra. Did you ever have a chance to meet her and did she mentor you and any dance? And you said that she was also the one who sparked your animal welfare journey. Right, Right.
Speaker 2:Right, yes, rukmini Devi was the director of Kala Kshetra when I was a young student there and I used to see her at prayer meetings. She would be there and she was always the most elegant. She was in her 80s at that time. She was the most elegant 80-year-old I had ever seen and she spoke so softly and so beautifully and so compassionately, trying to awaken all of us to being kind to animals and to be considerate to them and not to propagate cruelty. She used to talk about vegetarianism.
Speaker 2:My dance teacher, sharada Hoffman.
Speaker 2:She had a very deep impact on me because I spent a lot more time with her Every day in the dance class and then after rehearsals and dance practice she would take us home and feed us sandwiches and she would talk to us about all the things that Rukmini Devi had set up and had intended to do.
Speaker 2:And Sharada teacher's husband, peter Hoffman. Peter Hoffman was Rukmini Devi's support to prepare the report for the prevention of cruelty to animals. So in 1958, rukmini Devi presented in parliament a report that Peter Hoffman had prepared in great detail regarding the condition of animals across India and the cruelty being meted out, and Rukmini Devi presented this in parliament she was an MP at the time, and in parliament, pandit Nehru, who was the Prime Minister, he took the report and he said leave this with me, I would like to bring this in as an act. And two years later 1960, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act came in as an act of parliament. So the person who wrote that report was like a father to me. Peter Hoffman and I grew up in their home and their campus and both Sharada teacher and Peter Hoffman had a deep influence on me and they in turn had been deeply influenced by Rukmini Devi herself.
Speaker 1:And that sounds really nice. And my father has talked to me about the prevention for cruelty to animals at many times and I didn't know that Rukmini Devi was the one who presented it. I only learned that a few days ago. And after Kalakshetra, where did you go?
Speaker 2:In Kalakshetra. Well, I had a very exciting life in Kalakshetra. It was all between schooling, college, dance travels, tours, dance performances. I had an offer. I mean movie directors used to come after seeing the dance. They would come and ask me if I wanted to act in films.
Speaker 2:And in my final year at Kalakshetra I thought okay, I have to think of what I want to do as a career. And one particular director and his wife, who was the producer, they came and asked me to do a film and they said this film requires a classical dancer. So will you be the heroine of the film who is supposed to be a classical dancer? And until then I used to laugh thinking how can I act in films? I don't know acting and all of that. But when they said do you want, will you act? We need a classical dancer, then it made a click for me. You know, things fell into place and I said this I can do. I said, okay, let me try. I have to explore what, in which field I can build a career. And I did that film, even though I didn't know how to act. The director said no, don't worry, I will teach you how to act and I will train you and it was very interesting. The whole film we finished in about six or eight months and the film released.
Speaker 2:And when the movie released I remember going to see it in the theater and it was very exciting to see myself up there on the big screen. And when I came out of the theater I was writing my TVS 50, which I used to do as a student, and it was Adyar Crossroads, the main Adyar lights, the traffic lights, and I was on my TVS 50 coming from the theater and suddenly everybody around me started saying Amala, Amala, amala, paru, amala, paru. And oh, my goodness, I got which is look, look, look, it's Amala. And I got so frightened and realized, oh, everybody's recognizing me because now I'm a movie actor. And so I realized I need to buy a car now and that prompted me to go and sign my second film. But, jokes apart, it was very exciting because suddenly I had so many offers and so many people who wanted to make movies with me, and for the next eight years I was busy every single day shooting movies in five different languages right across the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that sounds like a dream. It sounds so amazing and wow, I would love to watch those movies someday.
Speaker 2:You should watch a film called Pushpak, which should be on YouTube. It's a film which doesn't have any dialogues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what was your favorite movie that you acted in?
Speaker 2:You know I did a lot of favorite movies, but I think I have a couple of favorite movies in every language, yeah, so I have a favorite movie in Malayalam, which was called Yanda Suryaputri, and I have a favorite movie in Tamil, which is I have two favorite movies in Tamil. One was called Agni Nakshatra, which was made with Manirathnam sir, and the other was a recent one called Kanam Sri Kartik, made by Sri Kartik. I have a favorite movies in Telugu. One was a film called Shiva. There was another very nice film called Ninnayam, but then I've also done my last film in Telugu, which is called Ok Okajivitham. Yeah, then in Hindi. Of course, shiva was in Hindi too, but I have a latest release in Hindi called Tumse Nahopayega. I'm playing the protagonist's mom, and he's a young entrepreneur and it's all about the struggles he has and how his mom supports him. So, yeah, so it's lots of fun. So many movies. But Pushpuk, interestingly, was made in Kannada. So, yeah, five languages for you.
Speaker 1:Wow, five languages, that's a lot of languages, and you must have had to learn all of them, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, you see, as an actor you don't have to be perfect at anything, but you can act like you're perfect, so you can do many things and you don't have to worry about being perfect.
Speaker 1:But that's amazing. You've had a very, very successful acting career. I've had a very interesting one. Yeah, and how did the Blue Cross of Hyderabad come about and what does it do?
Speaker 2:So in 1992, which is almost 32 years ago, I married my husband, who's also a very famous movie star and a producer and he owns Anapudna Studios. His name is Naga Juna, yeah, yeah, and I married him. And when I came to Hyderabad, I married him. And when I came to Hyderabad, it struck me that I didn't have to go to work the next day, because for eight years, back to back, every day, I was going to work, every single day. And suddenly I had taken a break and come to Hyderabad, a new city, and my husband was very supportive. He said yeah, you know what you want, you don't have to go to work. If you don't want to go to work, it's up to you. Enjoy, enjoy your life.
Speaker 2:And so I got up and I was visiting a friend and during the journey in my car I saw a lorry run over a goat and I jumped out and I picked it up and I looked for a number, because in Chennai I used to take them straight to Blue Cross of India. That used to be the place, the animal shelter I used to volunteer at. I used to take them there and I realized there was no number to call here, so I took it to a veterinary hospital in Shantinagar and there was a lovely, wonderful lady Vet there who worked for the government. Her name was Dr Vijay Kumari and she helped me. You know, bandage the goat up and I brought it home and within one month, vedant, my house, was an animal shelter.
Speaker 2:I had injured dogs and cats and puppies and kittens and birds, and I had a buffalo with a broken hip and a donkey with a broken leg and a blind mongoose. I had birds of all shapes and sizes and my husband came back from his shooting one day he was very busy as a movie star, came back and he said you know, amala, the house has become like a zoo. I think you need to plan it better and do it for the entire city. Why don't you do it? It shows that this is a need for the city. It was his idea. He put the seed in my head and I took all the love I had for animals and, together with the seed and the love, we created Blue Cross of Hyderabad. That's how it started.
Speaker 1:Wow, and it must have been like a really, really big achievement.
Speaker 2:It was just the idea, if I may say so. From then the hard work started, and it was a very hard work, vedant. It was probably the most difficult thing I ever did. Acting was easy. Acting was very easy. I tell you, the real work started when I had to start Blue Cross, when I took it up, but I think it's because I was doing it for a cause greater than myself. Nothing would stop me. It doesn't matter how difficult it was, it doesn't matter how challenging it was to convince people or to take all the criticism and abuse that I got and the sheer hard work of rescuing thousands and thousands and thousands of animals, never ending it was. It was tough and I had to get even tougher and I had to really become strong and courageous inside and outside, but it was all worth it.
Speaker 1:And I've been to the shelter Blue Cross and it's amazing. I really, really, I really loved it. There was animals everywhere and it's so nice that you started helping all of the injured animals, because I see when, even when I was coming here, there were just stray dogs and cats walking the streets and at any moment a car or bus or lorry could hit it. Thank you, vedant. And now there's a place for the animals to go to get better. And can you tell me more about the annual birth control program and also its importance?
Speaker 2:Okay, so what do you know about it?
Speaker 1:Something like preventing dogs or cats for having too many babies and overpopulation of the species, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So in India, as in a number of developing nations, there is a lot of garbage that is externally disposed. Unlike Singapore, singapore is so clean. Everything just disappears magically in the night, and in India it doesn't disappear magically. But I mean we have a very good municipal cleaning program where they do come and collect the garbage. But other than that there are a lot of communities where they just throw the garbage, eateries, they just throw the garbage, and because of this massive amount of garbage and food waste being thrown, naturally it attracts an astray animals. It's like inviting them to a biryani party, yeah, saying come, come, come, we've got lots of food for you. So these stray animals gather, they congregate, they eat and they breed. They say nature abhors a vacuum. So where there is food and there is space available, some creature will thrive, nature will thrive. So nature has sent the dog wherever the human being is and because of the garbage the dog thrives Right In this process. Naturally dog management has to be part and parcel of it. So you have garbage management and you have dog management. So every city in India.
Speaker 2:There are some laws now in place where the municipal corporation or the municipal authorities have to partner with the local animal welfare groups and they need to implement dog management along with garbage management, with the garbage clearance Right and along with that. That's how the ABC program was formed. Abc is it's as easy as ABC animal birth control. The government have very strict rules on how it's supposed to be done, because not everybody is equipped to deal with stray animals and if something goes wrong, stray animals can't ask for help Right. So that's where the animal welfare group plays a very strong role to make sure about the welfare standards of the animal birth control program, to make sure that the catching of the dogs is done in a very humane manner and that the surgeons are highly trained, because in four days of the dog being caught, neutered and vaccinated, the dog has to be released back in its place. And this is the program.
Speaker 2:About five years ago we realized that the dog population was just growing and growing and growing and there were more and more parts of the city. The city was growing and extending and including new parts and new dog populations and new garbage to deal with. So we realized that somebody had to work very hard just to do the dog management Right. And if you want to work hard and do something, you have to give up something else. You can't do a little bit of this and that and that and that and that and that and be effective, right. So it's like when I became an actor, I gave up dancing because I realized I had to focus and do one thing.
Speaker 2:When I started animal welfare, I gave up acting and I gave up dancing. And when I started doing the animal birth control, I had to give up several other areas which were taking up all the shelter space and all the budget we could raise and all our time and energy, and it wasn't helping. It wasn't helping anyone. So we stopped all of that and we shut down everything and we shifted only to sterilizing street dogs and cats. Within one year there was an enormous drop in the number of puppies, there was a huge drop in the number of road accidents and there was an even larger drop in the number of cases of Parvovirus distemper and other canine diseases that come with unhealthy dog populations. That's only because we started focusing on neutering and vaccinating, and when we vaccinate, we vaccinate for all the canine diseases as well as rabies.
Speaker 1:Wow, congratulations. Thank you. And in Hyderabad is Blue Cross the only shelter, or are there any more?
Speaker 2:I think there are almost 28 groups of animal welfare people in Hyderabad. Although the shelters may be five or six shelters, I haven't been to them all but I do know that a large number of young people want to start up new places and are looking for spaces to collaborate with. I met this young man Devan was his name and when he was in engineering college he was studying aeronautical engineering he had convinced his engineering college to give him space where he started kennels for abandoned dogs. It was quite remarkable. So there are lots of young people like that, collaborating with small spaces that they can find to help the localised animals they find locally.
Speaker 1:And what are a few things my listeners can do to help animals and support Blue Cross.
Speaker 2:You could definitely visit your local animal shelter and see how you can help them, because there is a great need for people to understand how to coexist with animals. Visiting an animal shelter gives you that opportunity to know how to be around animals and how to support them. If you can't adopt, I mean it will be wonderful to adopt a homeless animal. But in case you are living in a small apartment or your parents are very busy travelling and you go to school all day and you don't have the time to adopt, at least you can go to a shelter and you can walk the shelter dogs, help the shelter and improve the quality of life of the shelter dogs. Never, ever, take pictures with exotic wildlife. I mean there is a lot of cruelty in the world today with people being fascinated to take pictures with wildlife and that causes a lot of trauma and anxiety and those animals are kept in captivity and it's quite a miserable life they lead for that one photograph.
Speaker 2:There are many, many ways to help animals, but your first starts with a visit to a shelter. Our shelter has a special program for children and on Saturdays, if you visit our shelter, we give a nice presentation on all the ways children can help animals and it starts with a tour of the shelter, knowing all the different animals and the issues that they face. What time does it start? It starts around 10, between 10 and 11 am.
Speaker 1:Okay, wonderful. Moving on to Anipurna College, can you share a little about what the college does and also your role here, sure?
Speaker 2:So my father-in-law was a legendary actor, akineni Nageshwar Rao. He was one of the early pioneers of the Telugu film industry to set up the studio in Hyderabad and bring the Telugu cinema from Chennai to Hyderabad. Until then, chennai was the hub of making films and my father-in-law and many pioneers with him at that time brought the industry to Telangana. The then Andhra Pradesh, which was the two states of Telangana were one at the time Telugu speaking states. The studio was built about 45 years ago and it was his dream. After he built the studio and he had his entire family working to make films in the studio, his dream was to set up an institution where they could educate filmmakers for the future. So it's not enough just to make films, but you must learn how to make films, and that's how Anipurna College of Film and Media started.
Speaker 2:It is 12 years now and, as my father-in-law passed away some years ago, my family requested me after his passing to take on the responsibility of looking after the film and media college. So here I am, the director, and we have 250 students in different degree programs learning filmmaking. There's a bachelor's degree. There's a bachelor's degree in animation and visual effects as well. There's a bachelor's degree in filmmaking. There's a master's degree in filmmaking and there are lots of short courses in all the different crafts of cinema, of filmmaking, and even in acting there's a certificate course, an intensive course of 5 months. We have young people here finding their way and learning how to make films.
Speaker 2:When you came in, we were watching a mini series a set of students have made. It was an 8 episode series that they've made and it's about a ghost. So we were sitting here enjoying it and they were getting some feedback from the faculty and this would be an exam for them. So they'll be getting their marks based on how the whether they've been able to apply everything they've learned from their teachers and their faculty during that course, how they've applied it when making the mini series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it on animated series?
Speaker 2:No, it's a filmed one. They've got actors and they shot it in various parts of the studio. They'll be going on now to their final semester, where they'll make their graduation film.
Speaker 1:So that's nice. Maybe I can come here and try to learn here sometime.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're most welcome If that's interesting for you. I can see it's. You're already comfortable with sound, right? So every film, that doesn't matter how short and how long, requires a soundtrack. And the soundtrack, if it's the more powerful or the more sensitive it is, the better the emotion of the scene, right? So from the cameras hidden in the actors' clothing and the set to capturing it when they shoot, and then they have to clean it up on the console and then they add the sound effects and then they add the music, and then they layer the whole thing and mix it, and then you get this beautiful soundtrack which just elevates the whole film or the episode to another level. But it needs somebody with a very good year for sound, right? So that's what you do with the sound.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, you have the writers. If you're a writer, you're interested in reading and you're a thinker, then you would write and you would direct the episode, and direction is also a very exciting thing. Writing is an art and a craft by itself. Or you have an interest in cameras and visual storytelling. Then you'd be a cinematographer and you learn all. You become the camera, so your eyes become the camera and you understand how to move around and tell the story in the most exciting way right, visual storytelling and you understand the colors and the spaces and how to use those spaces to tell your story and bring that script alive. After they film it then comes the editor. And the editor is like another director or another storyteller, because they cut it up and they arrange the whole thing in a way that becomes really more interesting, like when do you reveal to the audience that who done it or what's happening around the corner? Am I going to tell you who's waiting there? Stop, I'll tell you next episode.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, you have the production, the producer, the production team, because they have to arrange everything and they're very good organizers, they're very good schedulers, they think how to market it. Who is our audience? How am I going to raise the budget? How am I going to get things at the least cost so that I don't spend all the money on things that I can't afford? And they control everybody with the budget. And then they finally take it. They know how to advertise it and do their social media campaign to get the film or the content out there. So these are all the main crafts, but there's a lot more. You learn the history of cinema. You learn film studies. You learn media laws, because media laws are very strict now and you have to learn so many different things. You learn a bit of documentary and you learn environmental science and the environmental science stories you tell through documentary. And you learn psychology psychology how the audience psychology and the storyteller psychology and the young person psychology to be happy inside and outside.
Speaker 1:And do you have any tips you can share for students who are interested in our career in film and media?
Speaker 2:It's a great time to think about it because it's one of the industries that are growing at 22%. That is growing at 22%, so there are huge opportunities opening up. But, having said that, you have to come with an education. So the opportunities are there, but the training is very tough. You have to go through the training and the craft and all of that because it's heavily technology based. You can't just show up and know how to use the equipment. You can't just show up and expect somebody to let you use their equipment. It takes a lot of training and skills with that. Even if you train, it requires the attitude of an Olympic sports person. And I say Olympics because making a film is like the Olympics.
Speaker 2:It's the most difficult thing you would have done. I didn't say it was acting. Acting was easy. Animal welfare was difficult for me but I kept going because I loved the animals and then it was worth it. Every difficulty I faced was worth it and made me just do my best In cinema, in filmmaking, it's tough because out of nothing you have to create a dream and you have to not just tell a story that gives hope and engages your audience and garner everybody's attention. You have to make it all seem real. And it's tough, it's not easy, it's challenging, and to wake up every day and do that kind of challenging work takes an Olympian spirit. So you need to be very hardworking, you need to be very passionate about telling stories and you need to have a good way with technology, you know? And if you have these three things, then film is for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, film sounds really fun, Like it might be a really really hard thing to do, but the end thing is amazing, because I've watched quite a few movies and it's always amazing and the amount of hard work they've done to make it is all worth it, because it's just a piece of art Really.
Speaker 2:Really Well said. Well said, vedan. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:I really, really enjoyed talking to you today. Thank you so much for coming on this show. I really really enjoyed speaking to you. I learned a lot from it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, vedan. I've enjoyed sharing what little I know about animal welfare and cinema and acting and growing up, and I wish you and your listeners you have a wonderful 2024. There are exciting things happening around the world and there are difficult things happening around the world. As much as there is opportunity, there's also a lot of suffering, and I hope your podcast will give will share, hope and guidance for young people across the world.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you, vedan. Thank you All the very best. Thank you, and don't forget to rate and leave comments.