Stranger turns autodriver’s destiny becomes a millionaire
His plotline arcs from the driver’s seat of an auto to the spotlight of cinema, where fortune and fate shaped a life much greater than he would have ever imagined
There has been instances of an ordinary auto rickshaw driver turning a millionaire, yet there is an actor for whom this familiar storyline is not fiction but lived experience. He once drove an auto to make his ends meet, entered the film industry he had long dreamt of, earned crores, and built a life far removed from the one he began with.
His plotline arcs from the driver’s seat of an auto to the spotlight of cinema, where fortune and fate shaped a life much greater than he would have ever imagined
On the face of it, one might assume this actor’s story to be the plotline of a film — but it is, in fact, the unembellished truth.
Tamil actor Bose Venkat has lived a life filled with twists that often exceed those found on screen. At just seventeen, he travelled to Chennai with dreams of cinema, sustaining himself by driving an auto until he could find a way into the film industry. Aware that hunger waits for no one, he took up whatever work came his way rather than wait for success to knock at his door.His first break arrived from the small screen.
His wife, Sonia Bose, meanwhile, is a well-loved Malayalam actress who gained popularity through both cinema and television. She had embarked on her career as a child artist in the Malayalam film industry. Today, the couple are parents to two children.
Bose Venkat, who later turned out to be widely recognised through the serial Metti Oli, once recounted in detail the extraordinary incident that pushed him towards films. What unfolded in 1997 sounded so cinematic that it could easily have been scripted.
He spoke about his mentor, Narayanasamy, widely known as Gopali. “When he (Venkat) was an auto driver, he used to watch world cinema. In those days, international films were screened simultaneously at Woodlands, Satyam and the Film Chamber. He went to watch an Hungarian film at the Film Chamber. An elderly man next to him was completely immersed in it.
Adding that after the film, he asked if he(Venkat) had understood what he watched. Venkat told him he had not… that he had merely been observing him enjoy it. He asked what his (Venkat) dream was and why he had come to Chennai. Venkat told him he wanted to become an actor.’ He walked away laughing. Venkat had parked his auto a little distance away and changed out of his coloured shirt, put on khaki, and waited for a passenger. Suddenly he heard someone ask, ‘Are you going to drive an auto?’ It was the same man from the theatre.” The man asked for a ride.
When they reached a large house, he paid the fare and invited Bose Venkat in for coffee. Reluctantly, he accepted. Inside, he was asked to pray in the puja room. Then came the words: “You are a great actor.” Confused, Bose listened as the man introduced himself — Gopali, former director at Doordarshan and mentor to Rajinikanth, Chiranjeevi and Srinivasan, the very person who first introduced Rajinikanth to K. Balachander.
He asked Bose Venkat to begin training with him from the next day. “The following morning, he brought a hundred rupees and a basket of rice as dakshina. His wife never let him leave without a meal. She even took him to an astrologer to ask whether he would become a great actor. As per his belief, he turned one. Years later, he returned that same hundred-rupee note to him as a blessing.”
The young man who once drove an auto for a modest fare is now an actor worth crores — a journey shaped by struggle, chance, and the unexpected kindness of a stranger who changed his destiny.
News Edit KV Raman
