Panday among Indian actors on big screen

In the editorial segment, Mahabir outlined several actors of TT who excelled in movies made in other countries. He featured Basdeo Panday as the first Caribbean Indian to be an actor on the big screen in Nine Hours to Rama (1963). Panday’s part as the laundryman was brief, but it was a speaking role that earned him notable credit among stars like Horst Buchholz, Jos Ferrer and Valerie Gearon. The movie about the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the BAFTA Film Award in the Best British Cinematography Category in 1964.

Panday also acted in two other British cinematic movies: Man in the Middle’(1964) and The Brigand of Kandahar (1965). The first two films were distributed worldwide by 20th Century Fox, and the third by Warner Brothers.

Another Trinidad Indian stage actor-turned-politician also made his debut on the cinema screen. Ralph Maraj appeared as the leading actor with Angela Seukaran in two movies released in the same year: The Right and the Wrong (1970) and The Caribbean Fox (1970). The first won a gold medal at the Atlanta Film Festival for its excellent cinematography.

In the movie Bim (1974) Maraj excelled as a film actor in the title role of Bim/Bheem Singh.

The Caribbean Indian actor who has earned the honour of starring in the most Hollywood films is Errol Sitahal. He portrayed a business executive in the comedy Tommy Boy (1995) starring Chris Farley.

Sitahal was also the mysterious Indian servant with a pet monkey in the movie A Little Princess (1995). Sitahal appeared in another Hollywood blockbuster Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle.

Also making her extraordinary appearance as an actress on stage and cinema was Grace Maharaj. She starred in scores of stage performances, numerous television commercials, four television serials, and four full length movies: Bim (1974), Man from Africa/Girl from India (1982), Men of Gray II: Flight of the Ibis (1996) and The Mystic Masseur (2001).

Other notable Trinidad Indian actors who have been featured in speaking roles in cinematic movies include Kenneth Boodhu in The Caribbean Fox, and Simon Bedasie in Bim, Operation Makonaima (1972), and Men of Gray II (1996). Hansley Ajodha and Devindra Dookie also acted in Men of Gray II. Other performers such as David Sammy, Patti-Anne Ali, Dinesh Maharaj, Keith Hazare Imambaksh and Anthony Harrypaulsingh have all appeared in minor roles in The Mystic Masseur (2001). Directed by Ismail Merchant and filmed on location in Trinidad, the movie is an adaptation of a novel by Caribbean Indian Nobel Prize laureate, V S Naipaul.

Mahabir summed up this publication noting: “The Caribbean has a fledging film industry and, consequently, prospects for acting in cinema are extremely limited. But opportunities abound in stage dramas, television movies, short documentaries and advertising commercials.”

It is important that Indians appear in the spotlight in numbers commensurate with their size in the population, he added.