Ajay Kumar, popularly known as Guinness Pakru, is an Indian actor. He has made an entry into the Guinness World Records for being the shortest actor to play a character in a full-length film. He played the lead role in Athbhutha Dweepu, a Malayalam movie directed by Vinayan. The movie was later dubbed in Tamil. The film Athbhutha Dweepu starred him as dwarf prince Gajendra of the kingdom Vamanapuri on a fantasy island, where the men were cursed to be dwarfs and women were of normal height. Around 300 dwarves acted in that film. In 2013, Pakru made his directorial debut with the film Kutteem Kolum.
Early life
He was born Ajay Kumar, as the eldest son, of Radhakrishna Pillai and Ambujakshiyamma, on 31 August 1976 at his father's home in Mulavana, Kundara. His father was an auto driver and mother was an L.I.C agent who also worked at a telephone service agency on contract. Soon after his birth his family moved to Kottayam. Since his mother was often transferred they moved from one place to other and finally settled at Pandavam, Aymanam, Kerala. He has two younger sisters, Kavitha and Sangeetha. He studied at C.M.S L.P School, Chalukunnu until fourth grade and at C.M.S High School, Olassa until S.S.L.C. Then he joined Baselius College, Kottayam and completed his pre degree and graduation from there. He is a BA graduate in economics and has a diploma in computer science. He started his career as a mimicry artist and later moved to films. He worked as a mimicry artist in mimicry troupes like Mangalam Mimics, Nadirsha's Cochin Universal and Kottayam Nazeer's Cochin Discovery. By age 18 he had completed 1000 mimicry stages. He debuted through the children's filmAmbili Ammavan in 1984. He now also acts in TV serials.
Personal life
Pakru married Gayathri Mohan in March 2006. They have a daughter, Deeptha Keerthi, born on 14 April 2009. Pakru once said that Deeptha Keerthi was actually his second daughter. Before her, there was a daughter who lived only for two weeks.
Transformation to director
Pakru became a director with the 2013 Malayalam movie Kutteem Kolum, in which he also played the lead role in the movie. He may be the shortest director in filmdom. The film starred Aditya, Sanusha, Laya, Munna, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Vijayaraghavan and Ponnamma Babu. The camera was handled by Vinod Bharathi and music by Shaan Rahman.
Honours and awards
Pakru made an entry into the Guinness World Records for being the shortest lead actor to play a character in a full-length film. His accomplishment is cited on the 167th page of the 2008 edition of the Guinness World Records. He was also presented with a Kerala State Film Award and a special Tamil Nadu State Film Award for his performance in the film Dishyum in 2006. ;Guinness World Records
Guinness Book of Records - shortest actor to play a lead character in a full-length movie
Guinness Book of Records - shortest film director in the world to direct a full-length movie
