Unsung multi-lingual actor in penury

Hyderabad, Jan 25: Fame and riches are not perennial in the tinsel world. As in real life, fortune or misfortune come according to one's fate.

Actor Potti Veeraiah's story is a testimony to this. A dwarf by birth, he has acted in over 300 films. Yet he is forced to eke out a livelihood running a telephone booth at Krishna Nagar in the city.

He lives in a single room with his wife, paying a rent of Rs 1,500.

Strangely, his wife is not a dwarf like him. What's more, she is quite beautiful. Their's was a love marriage! Sixty-year-old Veeraiah has acted in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam and Oriya films. He has appealed to the 'captains' of the film industry to at least provide him a small piece of land.

''At the fag end of my life, I can at least construct a small house and live in peace,'' he pleaded, talking to UNI.

Surely, the Telugu film industry, which is celebrating its diamond jubilee at a cost of nearly Rs nine crore for three days from January 26, with pomp and gaiety must come to his rescue.

Veeraiah was born in Banigiri village of Nalgonda district in 1947. While studying in school, he pitched on a strange idea.

He wanted to go to Hyderabad to pursue further studies if he got through his school examination. But if he failed, he wanted to become an actor.

As fate would have it, he failed in his examination and boarded a train to Madras with the ambition of becoming an artiste as he had some stage experience.

Many laughed at him when he was leaving his town and many more, when he reached Madras.

To earn a living, Veeraiah joined a shop making artificial flowers for supply to filmmakers. He used to live in a ramshackle room in Vadapalani. Mallika, now his wife, used to live in the same lane as him. Veeraiah often used to tell her of his ambition to become an actor. He got his first break in 1967 in B Vithalacharya's 'Aggidora' featuring Kanta Rao, then a big star along with N T Rama Rao. The film was a smashing hit and was dubbed into almost all Indian languagues.

Since then he acted in films featuring N T Rama Rao, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Sivaji Ganesan, Raj Kumar and M G Ramachandran. His characters mostly used to be that of a clown or a small demon in folklore films.

Veeraiah soon become a star and had a decent apartment and even a car. Mallika fell in love with the man who had the will of steel and achieved what he wanted.

However, Mallika's father opposed the marriage. But she went ahead and married Veeraiah who was by then popular as 'Potti' (Dwarf) Veeraiah in 1974. Veeriah had attained star status and people were asking for his autographs.

But bad times started haunting Veeraiah as folklore films went out of vogue with the death of Director Vithalacharya. The Telugu film industrly shifted to Hyderabad.

Having no other means of livelihood other than acting, the family shifted to Hyderabad. Veeraiah was felicitated on several occasions.

But that was all he got from the film industry. Whatever he had earned, including his little car, were gone.

With whatever remained of his savings, he is now running a telephone booth in the city. Many come to his booth and make phone calls from there, for old time's sake and chat with him.

A vexed Veeraiah even urged this correspondent to reach out to people of the film industry and the government to come to his rescue and ensure that his family got a decent living as he had served the industry for nearly 40 years.

UNI