there’s a big hatred out there, towards certain people. Like this whole controversy about Ilaiyaraja and AR Rahman, because I’m GRLQJD¿OPZLWK5DMDVLU,PHDQVHULRXVO\" Who are you to sit in a room and talk about OHJHQGVOLNH,ODL\DUDMDDQG$55DKPDQ"7R compare them is really unfair. After a time, I decided that there wasn’t any point in reading these and responding to them. Because these are frustrated, jobless people. And they do all sorts of stuff, sitting in their dark rooms, in front of a computer. It really doesn’t matter. This is a very small community, which reaches out to a small section of people. Internet penetration itself is very low in India. And even among those, there are very few people who actually browse and comment. I mean, how jobless would you have to be to DFWXDOO\FRPPHQWRQDWUDLOHU"+RZPDQ\ times have you or I commented on a trailer ZHœYHVHHQ",IZHVHHVRPHWKLQJRQOLQH we like it and move on. We don’t sit and comment on it. It’s just not done.

directors. First, we need to establish a banner – and that’s not going to be easy. I mean, WKH¿UVWWKUHH¿OPVGLGQœWDFWXDOO\PDNH much money for us. But we’re trying. We’re DFWXDOO\FRPLQJRXWZLWKWZR¿OPVWKLV year. Apart from our own Yohan, there will EHWZRRUWKUHHPRUH¿OPVQH[W\HDU¹,œYH actually asked a couple of big directors to do something for us. (Pause) It’s been ten years in the industry and it’s high time we gave something back to it...

Isn’t there some talk about a TV series with Parthepan? Yes – we’re starting it in a month’s time. We’re doing a series of episodes based on a central character who happens to be a cop. It is set in Chennai and is about crime in the city and how cops handle it. It’s also an emotional story about a cop who is a widower and with a daughter. It’s going to be very interesting. And it’s going to have music by AR Rahman, incidentally. 7KDWÂśVDÂżUVWLVQÂśWLW"%ULQJLQJ$55DKPDQ WRWKHVPDOOVFUHHQ"+RZGLIÂżFXOWZDVLWWR manage it? Oh, he was perfectly okay with it. Didn’t take any convincing at all, because he said, ‘We really should improve the quality of programmes on TV. Television is so bad; we must do something to better it’. It will be like the one hour episodes, hopefully Monday to Friday. What’s your journey been like, as a producer? It’s a journey that’s just begun, actually. We know we’ll come around and do much better ÂżOPV+RSHIXOO\ZHÂśOOPDNHPRUHPRQH\ DQGSXWWKDWEDFNLQWKHÂżOPV:HKDYHEHHQ meeting a lot of people. Now that you’ve PDGHÂżOPVDQGDQDPHIRU\RXUVHOISHRSOH ZDQWWRPDNHÂżOPVIRU\RX$OOWKHELJ GLUHFWRUVZDQWWRPDNHÂżOPVIRUWKHPVHOYHV and we want to work with smaller, new

A pr i l 2012 | S o u t h sco p e

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