Working With The Stars

Kalaripayattu master K Sunil Kumar Gurukkal talks about his experiences of working with Padmawat stars Ranveer Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor as well as other Bollywood, Mollywood and Hollywood stars

By Shevlin Sebastian

At Subramanian, a town in Karnataka, Mollywood superstar Mammootty was standing with a six-feet-long urumi (a type of steel whip, with several strands) in his hand. Three hooligans approached him with swords. This was during a shoot of the film, 'Mammankam'. Kalaripayattu master K Sunil Kumar Gurukkal stood to one side watching keenly. He was choreographing the kalaripayattu moves.

As Mammootty swung the urumi, an opponent lunged forward. Unfortunately, his sword grazed the back of Mammootty's hand. “Mammootty Sir started bleeding,” says Sunil. “The nerves had been cut. And there was a large swelling.”

The shoot was stopped at once. Crew members rushed to get ice. Soon, it was wrapped in a piece of cloth and pressed against the back of the actor's hand. Medicines were given. However, within half an hour, a grimacing Mammootty resumed shooting.

As all this was taking place, Sunil’s mind went back to a few months earlier when he was at the Reliance MediaWorks Studio at Film City, Mumbai. Bollywood star Shahid Kapoor was wielding the urumi and, like in Mammootty's case, somebody hit him on the back of the hand. “Thankfully, the injury was not serious,” says Sunil.

In fact, for about six months, Sunil would regularly go to Mumbai to impart training to Ranveer Singh and Shahid for the fight sequence between the two for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film, ‘Padmawat’. “I had worked extensively with Ranveer earlier for ‘Bajirao Mastani’,” says Sunil. “So he picked up the moves very fast, as did Shahid.”

Sunil was all praise for the two stars. “They were completely dedicated and focused,” he says. “Once, because of a tight shooting schedule, Ranveer came at 5 a.m. to the studio to practice.”

Sunil has worked with other Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, and Ajay Devgan apart from heroines like Deepika Padukone and Kareena Kapoor.

For all of them, he has a basic teaching method. “In the beginning, we teach a lot of animal postures,” he says. These include the varaha (wild boar), simham (lion), sarpam (snake) and gaja (elephant). “These are warrior postures,” he says. “Thereafter, I teach them the forward and backward movements. Then there is training with the swords and the Urumi.”

Sunil had also made a foray into Hollywood through Jackie Chan's film, 'The Myth'. “The shoot was in Shanghai,” says Sunil. “Through research, the film-makers came to know about kalarippayattu and got in touch with our branch head in Thiruvananthapuram, Satyanarayana Gurukul who informed me.”

Sunil was much taken up by Jackie. “He was flexible and knew many martial arts,” he says. “Jackie learned quickly.”

And he was a warm-hearted person. Once Jackie was travelling in his trailer during an off-day. He spotted Sunil and his brothers Anil and Gopakumar, along with the dancers of the Kozhikode-based CVN Kalari Nadakavu walking along a sidewalk following a shopping trip. “He stopped the vehicle and beckoned for us to join him,” says Sunil. “Then he dropped us to the hotel. I was amazed that a Hollywood superstar could show such humility.”