I was relieved that Shanthini Venugopal forgot our online meeting with her sister Suki. But she connected 30 minutes later.

Finally, I found something slightly negative to mention. Because writing about the Venugopal sisters – Sukania and Shanthini – is like entering some heavenly realm. Finding anything negative was the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Both are brilliant artistes. Between their vast and varied talents, they could host a show with just a cast of themselves.

They dance, sing, act, create, organize, teach. Their repertoire, on stage and film, would take a few pages to list down.

These, in no particular chronological order, are a few:  The Proposal. The Killing of Sister George. Anna and the King. Talentime. Jodoh. Terra Arrata. Little Red Riding Hood. Look at Me. The Year of No Return. Alice in the Antipathies. Counting and Cracking.

Sukania, better known as “Suki”, is the elder of the two.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

She is now 65 years old and exudes an ethereal aura with her distinctive white mane of flowing, wavy hair framing her bright and beautifully expressive eyes. (“Suki is 50% eyes”).

She is an actor and a dancer and has been for over 30 years.

Shanthini, now 63 with her wide, doe eyes and irrepressible air of joie de vivre and carpe diem is the singer and the actor also for more than 30 years.

But really that’s just a timeline to record their professional work. They have been in the limelight since Shanthini was 7 and Suki, 9.

“That would have been the time we both did “The Twist” when my mother was singing on RTM. I remember how we had to improvise because we forgot all the steps, so we just did our own thing,” says Shanthini.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Their late mother, Nalini Venugopal was a well-known singer, dancer, and veena player with her own following of fans. She was also a regular performer for the first Malaysian radio and TV station, RTM.

Was there any sibling rivalry growing up?

None says Suki. None says Shanthini.  None ever.

“But growing up Suki used to get so irritated with me because I always wanted to do everything she did.

“She did ballet so I too went for lessons. But decided “no lah, not for me.

“I remember this school talent time and because Suki entered, I entered. I did not know what song to sing so I eavesdropped Suki practising in the bathroom.

“She had chosen “Nobody’s Child”  (sings) “As I was slowly passing” – so I also chose the same song.

You will never believe it. Five participants chose the same song. Can you imagine how the band boys were pulling their hair? Five of us in five different keys.

My sister has a very high register. Mine is bassy.  It was hilarious. So all five did not make it. We all became nobody’s child!”

Sukania’s journey through Performing Arts in Malaysia and beyond

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Suki’s professional acting life began in 1973 when she entered the University of Malaya (UM) to pursue a degree in English.

Mano Maniam,  Malaysia’s distinguished veteran actor, director, theatre practitioner recalls their first encounter:

“I met Suki when she was in her first year at UM. I met her on set,  I believe it was the first play she was doing, outside school. It was a comedy called “The Happy Apple” performed at The British Council. LIDRA, UM’s Literature, and dramatic society used to put on plays. And she was in a few of those.

She was my assistant director in 1981 when I directed Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House. Then after that, we found ourselves in a number of plays together. Her talent as an actor was obvious from the start. She had the skills and a very good voice.”

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Antares Maitreya, writer, actor, musician, artist had also met the sisters at different times:

“I met Suki in 1978 when I acted with her in a Chin San Sooi production. She was and still is absolutely gorgeous. I was completely besotted.

I met Shanthini a bit later when she was singing in nightclubs all over the country. I remember once, while en route from JB to KL,  stopping to watch her sing in a pub in Kluang. She wanted to be a singer, and that’s what she did.

Their father was a big man in the Hari Krishna movement. Almost like a temple keeper with the aura of a high priest. Their mother was a celestial being when she was playing the veena. Like an angel. Both are very spiritually charged up people. As devotees of Krishna, they were thus blessed with very beautiful and talented daughters.”

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Lawyer and Corporate Trainer, Thakurdas Jethwani:

“Suki was a joy to work with. I did Chekhov’s “The Proposal” with her. She was already a star in the late seventies.  I was so humbled that I was acting with a star.  I learnt a lot from her and grew as an actor. There was and still is something very calming about her. Magical almost. When she laughed, she laughed with her whole body.”

Another veteran actor and theatre practitioner, Sabera Shaik says:

“She is very quick to grasp dramatic nuances and be able to carry out those nuances as consistently as possible. It is quite fascinating. Yet her talent can go anywhere. She is very sensitive to the other actors, very kind. Can’t think of anything negative. I don’t think she has an ego at all, which made it easier for all her co-actors. She is also very easy to travel with.”

Usually, Suki is reticent, something she admits of herself, but this time, during our online meeting, she was quite chatty.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

I queried her about how she approached acting and singing work as compared to Shanthini who was very “carpe diem” about all the opportunities that came to her. She laughed, paused for thought, and then said:

“When I was younger,  I just grabbed anything that came along. But now I don’t go out looking for theatre projects. If it comes, it comes.

If I resonate with it, I go with it. Now when it comes to traveling to India -that I do. That I am very “carpe diem” about.  And that was pretty regular from 2012 until 2019.”

Suki had traveled to India for performances with the Temple of Fine Arts. Her work with Instant Cafe Theatre also took her out of the city.  In 2019  Suki and other international actors were selected after the director and writer had hundreds of audition interviews for The Belvoir Theatre production of “Counting and Cracking.”

“It took me to Sydney and Adelaide but now has been stalled due to the pandemic. Otherwise, I would be touring right now. In 2019 I  also had the opportunity to work with a bunch of amazingly talented actors from Australia, Japan, and the Philippines in The Necessary Stage’s “The Year of No Return.”

Because of the pandemic, the parts of the non-Singaporean actors were produced virtually, mine was shot in a studio here in KL. The show must go on, and it did in May 2020 in Singapore’s Victoria Theatre.”

Shanthini’s footsteps onto the stage and storytelling

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

“We started in different fields,” explains Shanthini, “Suki started by acting I started by singing. It was not that I chose this career path. It just naturally went that far. Call it an unconscious lead-up to being in the performing arts. There is never anything that can be called an accident.”

When Shanthini completed her O’ levels, she made her way to Toronto, Canada to pursue a diploma course in Airline Preparatory and Public Relations. She was inspired by her mother who worked as a travel agent and all the travel junkets that came with it.

There at the tender age of 17, she entered a singing talent time and won, singing acapella. After getting her diploma, she went to Montreal to do a degree course in Business administration and it was there that she formed the acapella group of two boys and two girls called “The Singing Telegram,” which turned out to be quite successful.

After graduation, she returned to Malaysia with the idea of applying for permanent residence in Canada. But fate changed all that.

She was offered a job as a marketing executive in New Straits Times and decided to take it. With that, she inevitably became a member of the NST band, Gerak Kilat, and the Hotliners.

From 1979 until the formation of the Instant Cafe Theatre Company in 1989, Shanthini has been a lounge singer, pub singer, and manager, tourist guide, marketing executive, production manager for different companies.

Instant Cafe Theatre Company (ICT)

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Suki and Shanthini shared the stage for an ICT revue show in 1989 and many times thereafter.

Shanthini also did the administrative work until ICT kept getting more and more gigs.

“It was a wonderful time brainstorming, drinking a lot of beer, talking cock a lot, out of which came out a lot of ideas. I wrote the script for “The Polis Skit”  – about a woman who gets mugged, makes a police report and instead gets accused of being careless! The only ICT script I wrote by myself. Got help from the gang to tweak it.  So proud of myself.

ICT’s unique brand of entertainment with satire also gave me a political education and how things were not right, so I became more exposed politically.”

In 1991 she became a full-time member of ICT and stayed on until she had her “cancer scare.” A scare that turned out to be groundless when she found out she was, instead, pregnant at the age of 39.

She gave birth to CJ Hariharan when she was 40.  In 1999 she was selected for the part of the nanny in the Hollywood movie Anna and the King, a lucrative opportunity that was perfect timing for a new mother.

Growing older and still performing

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

The offers did not dry up when the sisters got older.

Suki at the age of 45 took up Bharata Natyam at the Temple of Fine Arts (TFA). In 2001 she did many TFA productions as well as ICT work.

As a single mother with a young child,  life for Shanthini moved in a totally different direction.

“Having a kid was not a conscious choice. When I was younger, I had a lot of issues with my fallopian tube and my womb and the docs had told me I could not have children. At that point, I was devastated. So surely it was a blessing, that at the age of 39 I found out I was pregnant.”

When Hari was 6 months, Shanthini met Cinzia Ciaramicoli which heralded a partnership that led to the incorporation of  The Jumping Jellybeans Theatre Company (JJB) in 2004. JJB’s work was prolific  – with performing arts for children and adults. For Hari, it was an idyllic childhood. Now  23, Hari has this to say about his mum and his aunt:

“They are similar in many ways.  Similar in their encouragement, determination, professionalism. Their personalities are very different.  My mum is like the boss. The way I am with my aunt is very different.

“Mum is a headstrong, courageous woman. She raised me and provided me opportunities even though she did not have a stable, fixed-income career.  She re-invented herself to include me, navigated that transition so I could be involved.

And with Jumping Jellybeans, I was. She gave me good values, taught me about gratitude and not to be materialistic. She always allowed me to do what I wanted. Encouraged me to try out anything. Was there a lot of drama in my life growing up? Not at all. No drama at all. Despite being an actor, Mum does not like drama in her life. Life is complicated enough as it is, she said.”

In 2019,  ICT’s artistic director, Jo Kukathas directed Shanthini’s “Look At Me” where she sings and tells her life story.

Jo and the Venugopal sisters’ relationship has spanned 30 years. The renowned actor-director had this to say about the sisters:

“It was always gratifying to try out Instant Cafe comedy material on the Venugopal sisters. They were very discerning and if they found something genuinely funny, they would laugh and laugh till they cried. Soon we would all be laughing crazily, joyously. Their laughter is as generous, big-hearted, and lovely as they are. There’s nothing more satisfying or infectious than hearing the Venugopals laugh at the same time. “

As a copywriter in the Advertising business, Iqbal Shaik worked with Shanthini on many advertising jingles:

“Always very easy to work with. Very professional. Spot on. She would sing the songs. A dream to work with her. “

He remembers how when he played the part of the nurse in The Liberal Art Society’s production of “Romeo and Juliet” he had serious problems with the part. Neither the director or the producer could help him. He remembers how the two sisters took him aside and tutored him.

“They worked with me for 2 hours. Dissected the part. How to learn the lines. The way they did it. No, none of that. Look at it from this angle. Try and make it a part of yourself. Think of what YOU would do. Then do it the Shakespearean way. After that, I was a superstar!  Such a selfless, touching thing to do. They took the time. They did not have to but they did. I have nothing negative to say about those two. They are truly exceptional. Modest, generous, kind, really quite sickening but you can’t be sickened by them. So nice to have them as friends till this day.”

Advice for the newbies

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Copied and pasted from Eksentrika.

Suki advises up-and-coming performers and new entries into the field to think before committing to a project.

“Don’t commit just for the fun of it and then find you can’t keep to the commitment. Don’t think of remuneration and at the same time don’t let people take advantage of you. Enjoy the process of the project going in with an open mind.

Shanthini:

“The Universe always gives you an opportunity. It’s whether you grab it or not. Do what you love doing and you will be happy. Don’t gripe if you find you are not doing what is fulfilling for you. Remember always you have one very wonderful thing: THE FREEDOM  TO CHOOSE.”

Cover image: Shanthini Venugopal (right) by JLimphotography and Sukania Venugopal’s image was supplied by Sukania herself 

We’re looking for writers to write about the arts & culture in Malaysia and beyond. Read our F.A.Q. here before submitting your story pitch.