In Vidaadhu Karuppu, the audience is left to decipher everyone’s character based on their background story. This got the audience doubting each character. Prithviraj was generally seen as an angry young men, and here, he played a techie from abroad. Subhalekha Sudhakar was always playing innocent characters, and we cast him as the village rowdy. We gave him the role of a high-profile psychiatrist. Delhi Ganesh, for instance, was usually portrayed as a poor Brahmin or a cook. So, we intentionally roped in popular faces and gave them roles that were in contrast to what they were generally perceived. We were keen to make sure every character is doubted by the audience. ‘The first season, Ragasiyam, was a whodunit, and we had the culprit in plain sight. That is why we needed to finish each episode with cliffhanger moments.’ When it’s a weekly series, you can’t do that. If it’s a film, it’s easier to trust the audience with details. We need to see if the text can be conveyed without dialogues. ‘Adaptations of popular books often turn out to be disasters (laughs). It’s a belief that survived many generations.’ No one would dare rob a house guarded by Karuppu Saami. People would leave their houses open and keep a sickle on the roof, when they headed out to work. Karuppu Saami, for example, is a real story. I began connecting dots and found this very interesting. When reading about science, I would get reminded about something I read about religion. Kapaleeshwarar Temple was my first playground. My paternal grandmother, on the other hand, used to take me to the temple every day. My maternal grandfather, Chinappa, was a staunch atheist and a close friend of Periyar. I would read the latest articles of Scientific American while they would be teaching us thermodynamics. ‘Back in college, I learned more about science than what was taught to us. We brought in the multiple personality disorder idea into it.’ It was once again a whodunit but was also a revenge story. Together, we wrote the urban part about the lorry that kills people.Īs we had that TV slot, we decided to come up with more and started working on adapting another book (Vittu Vidu Karuppa), written by Indra Soundar Rajan. The rural parts - the temple and the navapashanam bits - were written by Indra Soundar Rajan. We then developed the second half and that became Marmadesam, a title suggested by KB sir himself. I realised though that there would not be enough content for more than 26 episodes, and we would not be able to break-even with limited content. Indra Soundar Rajan, who had written a series called Ragasiyamai Oru Ragasiyam (that was published in Ananda Vikatan) joined us. I accepted after thinking about it for two days. I accepted, believing I was getting roped in as the cinematographer, but then learned they wanted me to direct it too. ‘I was a cinematographer working with Balachander sir, when the series’ producers Kailasam (K Balachandar’s son) and Chandrasekhar of Min Bimbangal called me to do a series.
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