These three words have resonated through the film industry for the past 100 years. Camera being the centerpiece of it all since it’s the most important technical tool and the whole film making process revolves around it. The cameraman was the most important job that was next to the director since he was his eyes and vision. Very few cameramen made their mark felt through their techniques and scale of work. One such cameraman was K Vaikunth. Vaikunth Dattaram Kunkolienkar was born in 1925 at Margaon. A son of a school teacher Vaikunth decided to pursue a different career approach and opted to join the film industry. Vaikunth Dattaram Kunkolienkar assumed his screen name K Vaikunth after realizing that his Goan surname besides being very difficult to pronounce, was also very odd to write on film posters and film credit scrolls.
K Vaikunth started his career as a 5th assistant to cinematographer Surendra Pai with DD Kashyap's Bari Behen (1949) followed by Pandurang Naik. He learned the craft through total dedication and persistence, in an age when senior cameramen weren't perceptive to sharing knowledge and technical know how. K Vaikunth graduated through the ranks and got his first break within a short span of 7 years with Amar Kumar's Garam Coat (1955) starring Balraj Sahini and Nirupa Roy. Garam Coat was the first independent feature film shot by K Vaikunth which put him on the forefront as a technically proficient cameraman. Post the success of Garam Coat, K Vaikunth never looked back. In a career spanning for more than 5 decades, K Vaikunth worked on more than 35 feature films and numerous ads and documentaries. On feature films he regularly collaborated with the frontline directors of those times like Gulzar, Ramanand Sagar and Ramesh Sippy to name a few. 1971 marked the release of the biggest hit of the year, the multi-starrer Mere Apne (1971) starring Meena Kumari, Vinod Khanna, Shatrugan Sinha, AK Hangal and Mehmood. Mere Apne was Gulzar's first film as a director. K Vaikunth was a favorite cameraman of GP Sippy, and it is in their office where he met Gulzar who was working in the writers department of Sippy Films. Following the grand success of Mere Apne , Sita Aur Geeta (1972) released in 1972 which won K Vaikunth the much coveted Filmfare award for best cinematography. Most of the directors chose to work with K Vaikunth because of his strong technical knowledge and techniques. His experience as a documentary filmmaker had helped him strengthen his lighting and camera work. He was known for his speed and his ability to use a natural approach to lighting. Many heroines of the day like Suchetra Sen, Jaya Bahaduri and Hema Malini credited him for making them look beautiful and young. Such was his strength and weightage in the industry that during the time when movie hoardings only had the name of the banner, director, and music director, all the producers had his name put up on the posters as well to increase the production value of the film.
Not limiting himself to feature films, K Vaikunth also did sizable work in the world of documentaries and ad films. He regularly teamed up with the leading documentary filmmakers like Paul Zills, Rajbhans Khanna and S Sukhdev. His first documentary was Rajbhans Khanna's The Story of Kashmir followed by a short film on the Indo-China war called The Great Betrayal, both the films won him the president medal award. In 1956 he teamed up with S Sukhdev for a documentary And Miles to Go, which won him the Bengal tiger award. K Vaikunth wasn't only an ace cameraman but a director and producer as well. His love and passion for his home state of Goa didn't wither away when he came to Bombay. Under his banner K Vaikunth Films he wrote, produced, directed many documentaries on Goa like, Goa After Liberation, Goa Marches On and the most notable being Aamche Bhau, which was shot on the then deceased first Chief Minister of Goa Dayanand Bandodkar. The main highlight of the documentary was that it was shot after his death and showed his whole journey from birth to death. K Vaikunth had to take up the challenge of recreating the entire film from the ground up with references from old photographs. His observation skills as a cameraman came of help to him when he had a tough time for the casting process of Bandodkar. One day while shopping in a local fish market K Vaikunth happened to come across a man with the similar features, he was immediately cast as Bandodkar. The documentary was shot and conceived so meticulously that K Vaikunth was felicitated in the Goa Assembly and press for his work.
K Vaikunth was a favorite of the press as well. In a age where print media was at its peak K Vaikunth's name used to regularly come in the papers and magazines. In one of the articles which was on the launch of the documentary 'Goa Marches On' Joe Maski a prominent journalist wrote quote:
" K Vaikunth is a great favorite of all the leading stars like Vinod Khanna, Hema Malini, Dharmendra, Jaya Bhaduri, Sanjeev Kumar and Rajesh Khanna just to name a few. He deals with them both on and off the sets like a very close and respected friend exchanging jokes and tits-bits. I enjoy visiting the sets of K Vaikunth because of his instant humor which has the whole unit roaring with laughter. And this lighter side is particularly appreciated by the producers and directors because there is a lot of heat generated when things don't move along the way they're supposed to move on set. We need men like him in the film industry because he helps to keep the situation cool and the whole atmosphere in a jovial state at the very moment when it's needed the most.”
K Vaikunth always used to say 'a good cameraman has to be a good artist'. On his relationship with Ramanand Sagar, K Vaikunth says " I entered Famous Studios as an apprentice on the sets of Sagar's, Mehman way back in 1949. I didn't know why but I had an urge to work with him as a full fledged cameraman. The opportunity came with Geet (1970) where Sagar’s son, Prem was an apprentice under me.”
For a man who at the time had five silver jubilee hits running in a row at a time between 1971 to 1973 K Vaikunth was a man of simple taste. He didn’t have an iota of air or ego about him, but took great pride in his work. He stuck to his trademark look of kurta payjama till the end. One of his other trademarks was his tremendous energy level. No matter how late or tired he was from a shoot, if he met someone on the stairway or the streets he would stand for hours and hours chatting about the current topics. K Vaikunth was a man who had see the natty grits of life at close. He started as a struggler and ended up as a fully accomplished cameraman. He bought command and respect to a profession which in those days was looked down upon. For a person who had achieved so much success his feet remained firm to the ground.
Truly a people’s man, men like K Vaikunth don’t come along very often.
