My goal is to make people sensitive to animals: Amala Akkineni

Amala Akkineni continues to be one of the favourite Kollywood stars of the ‘80s. She was well-loved for her performance, her graceful dance moves, and her girl-next-door looks. Today, she is the director of a film and media school and the founder and chairperson of Blue Cross of Hyderabad. The actress was recently in the state for an interaction session with students and she left her audience spellbound once again.
Talking about her foray into films, Amala said, “I am half Bengali and half Irish by birth.When I landed in Chennai, everyone thought I was a Tamilian because I had learnt classical dance. I struggled a bit with language, but I must say that I was comfortable with Tamil. The number of films I did in Tamil is testimony to that. Chennai and Tamil cinema embraced me and for the longest time, I was passed off as a Tamilian. Even up North, I felt more South Indian than Irish. I later moved to Hyderabad and started learning Telugu as well. It would take me a week to start speaking Tamil fluently again.”
There were many challenges as a dancer, too. “When you start off as a dancer, you don’t become one overnight; you must train for more than a decade. So, right through school and college, when all my friends were busy bunking class, going here and there, chatting and listening to film songs, I was at dance class, sweating and doing my practice. By the time I was 13, I was performing at the Kalakshetra in Chennai. My school principal and my director used to debate a lot. One would say I was missing class, the other would say I was in the university of life. You learn a lot from failures. Your performance may be very good one day and the next day, your salangai might go flying or your mind may go blank in front of thousands of people. Similarly, your movie might be a hit or flop. But I learnt at an early age that even in your failure, if you have done a good job, people will recognise your good work. It doesn’t matter what the situation is, you need to give your best.”
But at the same time, Kalakshetra is where Amala had her warmest memories. “I treasure the years at Kalakshetra. The place was like an ashram — classrooms under the trees and you could hear the waves of the sea. Our uniform was dance sari. We would go for music, dance, and theory classes and discuss the concepts we were dancing on. If it was the Ramayana, we would have the Ramayana class. We had simple vegetarian food, hand-pound rice, and ragi kanji for breakfast. Students from all over the world would be there to learn Bharatanatyam. On special occasions, established artistes were invited to perform. As students, we would sit among the audience and watch. It was a wonderful time.”
Today, Amala has come a long way. “It’s incredible being a woman. I was, of course, fortunate to have an Irish mother who is an empowered woman. She comes from the western culture where women’s rights and empowerment happened much earlier in the 19th century. So, being brought up by someone like that, I never felt any different from a man. During my growing up years, I always connected with men who respected women. Today, I live in a family that respects women immensely. I have a work culture where women and men work fabulously together and complement each other in the work space. I am very aware of the challenges women face in India and I believe safety is a major issue. But at the same time, we are moving to a time where we have stringent laws and support system for women. It is the duty of every educational institution to teach the future generations of young men how to interact with women at work in a healthy and professional way.”
Amala is a staunch animal activist as well. “I love animals. As a kid, wherever I was, I would consider all the animals as friends and would play with them. It didn’t matter if it was a stray dog. For me, it was this beautiful creature with which I could play with. In fact, I was given the nickname ‘Sori Naai Amala’ at my hostel. There were 14 dogs in the campus and they were all my buddies. The cats used to have kittens in my cupboard. If anyone’s chappal or shoe was chewed on, they would shout at me, ‘Amala un
nai paaru’.
“Before I started Blue Cross of Hyderabad, I saw animals lying everywhere. No one would help them and there was no place to take them. My husband, Nagarjuna, and I started a rescue service and started treating animals. In 20 years, many things changed. Urban India faces the challenge of street animals all the time because we have created huge quantities of garbage that attract stray animals. And, if the stray animals go on breeding, they create a nuisance. After two decades of doing so many things, we decided to work with communities to reduce the number of animals on the street. After all, every animal deserves a home. We now focus on stray animal birth control where we identify an area, catch dogs, vaccinate, and neuter them. We help bring down their numbers so that there is no conflict between human beings and animals. If life is challenging for every human being, imagine how challenging it would be for an animal. It’s a cruel world for them. My goal is to reach out to as many people as possible, ask them to be sensitive to animals, understand how we can help them and co-exist with them on this planet. If you ever get a chance to make an animal friend, you will discover selfless love, unconditional friendship, resilience, dependability, and friend that no human being can match up to.”