Face to face with Pattukottai Prabhakar

Q: Are you fully satisfied with the way your stories were made into films or televised?

A: I wrote the dialogues and screenplay for my stories when they were made into television serials. So, the essence was kept in tact. I gave my stories to Balu Mahendra’s ‘Kadhai neram’. The genius handled them in a perfect manner. One of my short novels was tele-filmed in Kannada language. It came out very well and when the company approached me for a novel for their film, I gave one. But I refused to give the same story for Malayalam cinema as I didn’t have faith in the company. The Kannada film was titled ‘Wrong number’. It ran just for one week.

Q: What you’ve to say about the beating the print media has received after television became popular?

A: The ‘readers’ have now ‘transformed’ into ‘viewers’! But the writers are not affected by this. We reach people through light and sound instead of prints. Only the medium has changed, not the writing. Also, I’ve not fully diverted from print media.

Q: Is yours a love marriage?

A: No, it was not a love marriage. But I married after falling in love! It was an arranged marriage. But there was a gap of seventy days in between the betrothal and celebration. In some communities, it is not permitted even to see the girl before marriage. I was in Pattukottai at that time. My wife was in Trichy after completion of her studies. As our places were close-by, we met, talked over phone, exchanged letters etc., and the seventy-day interval was a courtship period.

Q: Parents usually take pride in whatever their son does. But a wife will be possessive and will expect her husband to be fully hers. How was your wife’s cooperation to you as a writer?

A: It is impossible for any man to achieve in any field without the cooperation of his wife. My wife, like my parents is fully supportive to me in all my activities. So, I am able to continue my writing work without any botheration.

Q: What is your perception of love?

A: That which doesn’t expect anything in return, that which is not calculative is love. But only sages can give this complete love. We, ordinary humans can only aim at it, but can never achieve it.