Shree Bose, an Indian-origin US-based high school girl, won an award for her research on why a certain drug was resistant to chemotherapy and for finding a solution for it. Remember it was a research done by a high school girl. This was her dedication towards it. When you have dedication, you can go from nothing to something and from something to everything.”
This is how Sahasramukhi Raghavendra Rao (popularly called as Ragi Rao) describes his life. A high school graduate, who worked as a stenographer at the University of Mysore (UoM), went on to become a much-sought-after expressionist in India and abroad. He has been a dramatist, a marriage and party photographer, a percussionist and today, with all his past experience, he is teaching people how to handle stress by altering expressions of past experience.
Ragi Rao is in city on vacation and had a chat with Star of Mysore during which he spoke about his different faces, on and off stage.
It all started with Oliver Hardy Born on Nov. 23, 1937, Ragi Rao worked at University of Mysore (UoM) from 1958 to 1978. His life took a different turn in 1970s. “Apart from my job, I was also a dramatist. But one day while I was shaving, I was twisting my face and at one point it resembled that of Oliver Hardy. With practice and change of expression, I was able to alter that face into Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin. I started entertaining people with this new-found talent and within two years came to limelight. The UoM recognised my talent and granted leave of absence for eight years. I started travelling across the country and earned the title ‘Sahasramukhi’ (Man of thousand faces). You need guts to make faces which will make others laugh,” he says.
Over the years, Ragi Rao has changed his face to resemble national personalities like Indira Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Kuvempu etc., to international figures like Hitler, Hardy, Martin Luther King and Max Muller among others.
Ragi Rao’s first big performance was at the Indian Institute of World Culture in Bangalore. In 1978, Ragi Rao immigrated to the US. “It was difficult for me to get along in the US because of the language and accent. But I didn’t give up,” says Ragi Rao who is today a renowned expressionist in the US.
“You can play the role of Rama and Krishna because no one has seen how they look. But to imitate a non-fictional character is very difficult. A writer writes the character and an actor portrays the character. But an expressionist not only portrays but resembles the character,” he adds.
With his experience as an expressionist, Ragi Rao worked for three years as Counselling Assistant at Mid Columbia Mental Health Centre, where he had to recognise if the patient was psychotic, neurotic or manipulative.
Face behind the lens
“When I was around 13 years old, I got a Kodak box camera. That is when my interest in photography started. Later, my brother got two good cameras for me with which I improved my skills. After I started earning, I got around eight film cameras and made my hobby a profession. With the introduction of digital photography, I sold all my film cameras to buy digital ones. I practiced professional photography for the past 25 years. But now I have stopped as it is difficult for me to carry the weight,” says Ragi Rao.
With this skill, Ragi Rao had organised a photography exhibition on the religious sculptures from India at US to collect money for installing idols at a temple there. The photographs showcased the sculptures from Belur and Halebid temples.
Expressing through drums
“Devotion and intelligence are one and the same. If I get interested in something, I will do it with complete devotion,” says the expressionist who is also a self-trained percussionist. He plays the tabla, mrudanga, ghata, and a host of other percussion instruments along with vocal percussion which, he says, he learnt by seeing and plays by mere knack. He had also given a performance ‘Drums of India’ to raise fund for the victims of 2001 Gujarat earthquake.
And finally…
“Now after portraying so many faces and getting tired of it, I am teaching how to face different faces of life with the appropriate face. This is stress language. It teaches you how to tame and tune your emotions. And unless you know this language, you cannot live with stress,” he says. But what is this stress language? Here is Ragi Rao’s answer…
“You should know 26 alphabets to read, write and understand English. Likewise, the nine emotions — serenity, fury, disgust, pathos, terror, eroticism, heroism, comic and wonder — are like letters. By combining these nine, you can create more emotions. We have heard of anger management and laughter therapy. But I thought why just two expressions? Why not combine all?
“For this you will have to think of a situation that triggers the emotion. Then think of a prefix and suffix relating to good or bad. Good reminds you to do the same to handle such situations. Bad tells you not to repeat the same. For example, in case of anger — think of a situation which made you angry and what you did to tackle it. If the situation was handled well with your expression then do the same in future, or else, alter it for better results. Use the same method for all the nine emotions and you will be taming thousands of other emotions. This will help you control your facial and verbal expressions, thereby helping you overcome tough situations in life.
“With common sense, an individual can make his/her personal tools to express and act with appropriate degree of verbal and facial expression to win situations.
“Physiognomy is not just an art but a science as well. Your facial and verbal expressions should match. If not, what you are telling may be a lie. Hence you should always live with the reality. You should not hide what you are. Ten persons may laugh at you for it but 990 will laugh with you.
“My main motto is not just to make faces to make others laugh and get away with it, but to show with this laughter, how to tame your face and live life better.”
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Feature Articles / by M.S. Apuurva / October 28th, 2011