Dramatic personality

KOCHI: It’s hard to guess that Saju Paul might have a father belonging to the Congress. Such is the man’s devotion to all things Marxist. In the course of our conversation, Saju mentions half a dozen Marxist leaders, authors and books.Yet for all his attachment to his party and ideology, the MLA is accepting of criticism. Mention the rot of corruption that has entrenched itself so deeply into every political outfit and he says, “Whenever there is corruption in society, it will seep into the party as well.” He pauses and adds, “There are ‘wrongs’ everywhere, but look for the place with more ‘rights’ and choose that place.”Moving away from politics, the three-time MLA from Perumbavoor mentions to us some of his other interests, that include plays and acting. “I used to watch 75 to 100 plays a year”, he says, adding to this a long list of favourite theatre groups, actors and plays.The MLA has dabbled in acting as well “I have acted in two telefilms, one was called ‘Yathrakoduvil’. Captain Raju and some others were part of that movie. Then there was this 2004 telefilm named ‘Kochunni Ude Swapnam’. It was a nice concept, but it bombed because the cast consisted of actors like us.” he quips. The movie which has around six or seven other MLAs in it, saw Saju playing the lead role of  Kayamkulam Kochunni, Kerala’s Robin-Hood figure. “Pirapangod Murali became the Yama Raja, T M Jacob enacted the Father’s part. K K  Shaju, Stephan George. Adv. Johnny Nellanur were all there,” he tells us.The other activity Saju particularly likes is oddly, “cleaning rooms” . “Sweeping the floors of the party office here was once a regular thing,” he says.But beyond all that, the MLA has a clear bent for intellectual pursuits and what he enjoys most is sitting quietly and reading. This of course quite evident when you consider the number of poetry and authors he quotes. Thakazhi, P. Govindan Pillai, O.V Vijayan,  Pottakad, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Dominique Lapierre, Jayaprakash Narayan,EMS, his list of favourite writers is a long on.  The MLA is also rather fond of quoting from newspaper. Not surprisingly, two of his favourite careers are journalism and lectureship.