He was instrumental in acquiring for the archive several landmark Indian films like Dadasaheb Phalke's Raja Harishchandra[1] and Kaliya Mardan, Bombay Talkies films such as Jeevan Naiya, Bandhan, Kangan, Achhut Kanya and Kismet, S. S. Vasan's Chandralekha and Uday Shankar's Kalpana.

Born and brought up in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Nair developed an interest in cinema early in his life.

He also conducted early work to establish the film archive set up as a separate wing of FTII.

The National Film Archive of India was founded in 1964 and Nair was appointed to the post of assistant curator in November 1965.

He spearheaded the NFAI, Pune for nearly three decades and built up the archive which now enjoys a vibrant international reputation.

He was instrumental in introducing the works of world masters of cinema like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Andrzej Wajda, Miklós Jancsó, Krzysztof Zanussi, Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, apart from significant Indian film makers like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, V. Shantaram, Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt to FTII students, film society members, and other film study groups in the country.