:: Cyrus Broacha

Pookutty is a sound techie

Cyrus Broacha

March.8 : As the Oscar fever doesn’t seem to be slowing down, I have been submerged with requests. Most of them are requests for me to leave the country forever. A few are more specific, like get a haircut, confine yourself to radio, and why don’t you take up the cause of Bharatanatyam as an Olympic sport. Out of all these requests, one has made me sit up and take notice. It is a request to me to write more about our Oscar-winning sound technician Resul Pookutty. Most strangely the request came from Resul Pookutty himself. So let’s get right to it.

My research (normally I take five minutes to research, but in Pookutty’s case I thought he deserved the extra minute), clearly outlines the rise and rise of Resul Pookutty or R.P. as his friends call him or Pookutty Resul as he calls himself.

Resul Pookutty was born exactly 37 years ago, to this week in a small village in northern Kerala whose name... er escapes me right now. His parents names are Mr and Mrs Pookutty. Resul was seen as an extremely articulate, alert and bright boy. By the age of nine he had mastered all the sounds of the village. The sounds included dogs barking, ducks quacking, birds chirping, cycle bells ringing, and leftists hitting one another. Not only had he mastered all three sounds, but he could unbelievably reproduce all of them simultaneously. This made him a big attraction at village fairs, where for added measure he stood on only one leg whilst duplicating his village sounds for an audience which never exceeded seven people on any given day.

In school and college, he turned his back on traditional pastimes like cricket and football. This led unfortunately into his being struck on the back of his head by a football on 15 separate occasions. Feeling like he was being victimised in his own village, he vowed to travel to a place where he would be more accepted. However his visa to Poland didn’t come through. There were of course many signs to show that Resul was going to be a lot different from other kids of his age.

For one, he grew a beard at the tender age of eight. Secondly he had memorised the complete works of Shakespeare, both in Malayalam as well as English, and thirdly he could serve tea from a teapot that was balanced on his head.

One day Resul cleared the exam for the film Institute of India in Pune. Here he found many like-minded people. I mean where else in India would you see more than two dozen people in one classroom, serving tea from teapots, placed precariously on their heads. The voracious Resul swallowed the course. He devoured Fellini, ate up Truffant and pigged out on Kurosawa.

Once outside the Institute he started doing his teapot on the head trick once again. This embarrassed his senior P.M. Saleesh, (himself a coffee drinker so no question of empathy there), who got Resul his first job as a sound mixer for a channel called MTV, which in those days used to play music. Here Resul honed his craft, mostly by ignoring the interviews on location and instead focussing on all the ambient sounds. Sounds like crows cawing, pigeons mating, cars starting, and his personal favourite women walking.

His big break came when he met Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the acclaimed director. One look at the teapot on the head trick and Sanjay was hooked. Sanjay still calls him for his birthdays and family functions.

Resul Pookutty a man who took the phrase "a sound mind is a sound body", to another level. He neglected his mind and body only to obtain excellence in sound. Resul Jai Ho!