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'The director has to make each one feel special'

One could sense the tension in Rajiv Menon's office. There's bound to be tension since his ambitious new project, Kandukondain, Kandukondain is ready for release on April 14.

Menon, however, appeared relaxed and cool when I met him in his room even though he admitted that he was tense. But he looked far from it, joking and reciting a poem and kathakali padam in the course of the interview.

It was after his first film Minsara Kanavu was declared a hit that I had met him last. That was two years ago. Yes, it took him two years to come up with his second film. Minsara Kanavu and Mani Ratnam's Iruvar were released on the same day then.

Call it a coincidence or what you will, this time too, his film Kandukondain... and Mani Ratnam's Alai Payuthe will be released on the same day. "Last time you outscored Mani Ratnam," I said. (His film was a hit while Iruvar flopped). "Iruvar was a great film, far ahead of its time. If you compare Rahman's music in Iruvar and Minsara Kanavu, I would say the former was Rahman's best score," he stated.

He also doesn't like the idea of comparing him or his film with Mani Ratnam whom he considers a 'great filmmaker.'

Excerpts from the conversation with Shobha Warrier.

How do you compare your experience of directing your first film, Minsara Kanavu with this one, Kandukondain, Kandukondain?

I think directing a film is like a woman going through labour. After she goes through the labour pain and delivers her first baby, she says she will not going to have another baby. Then, when she sees the child growing up, she decides to have one more child!

Your first child is almost three now. What did you see in it that prompted you to have a second child?

When I see the songs of Minsara Kanavu on air, when strangers come and tell you even now, 'we like that song, we like the colours in the song, I like that character,' etc, one feels like going through the whole process again.

Minsara Kanavu was a hit in the South, but not in the North. So, I had a flop and a hit in my last film. Even in places like Bombay where Sapnay didn't do well, people came up and told me that they liked the songs. Some set of people liked it and some didn't. In some places, people felt that the script was not very good and it did not make sense to the northerners.

In fast forward, I thought I would like a bigger story base this time. I found everything falling in place and everything happening the way I planned, barring the fact that the film is six months behind schedule.

So, you had a very long pregnancy for your second child...

Yes, the gestation period was a little longer. We didn't shoot for six months. After Aishwarya Rai gave two huge hits in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Taal, a lot of her films which were in sleep mode suddenly woke up. So, she had to devote time to those films which caused us a delay of around four to five months.

Then, I wanted something strong, different, Indian and classical from A R Rahman. That took some more time. These two factors resulted in a delay of six months. But the fact is that both of them have done great jobs. Ash has given a great performance and Rahman some brilliant scores. So, I can't really complain.

Above all, both of them are very good friends of mine and they are lovely human beings too. I am happy with the way things have turned out finally.

Was making this film easier than your first film? Are you more satisfied?

Much easier. I am sure the third one will be even faster. But we don't know which one will be successful. We don't know what will happen to these films after 20 years.

I was not asking you about the possibility of commercial success. How much satisfaction did the film give to the creative filmmaker in you?

I enjoyed making the first film. I enjoyed the second film a lot more.

Will you tell us something more about the film, unless it's a secret?

No, it is not a secret at all. It is the story of two sisters, two very unlike sisters. One believes and accepts things that come her way. But the other one is romantic and starry-eyed and passionate and she speaks her mind out, come what may. For instance, on being quizzed, 'Don't you like to choose the man whom you want to marry?' the elder sister would say, 'I didn't choose to be a woman, I didn't choose my eyes, I didn't choose my nose, I didn't choose my name. So, how can I choose the man who is coming to my life?' This is the logic the elder sister has.

But the younger sister has firm ideas, 'I will choose a man who will recite Bharatiyar, who will come in the storm and take me away.' Her elder sister asks her, 'Are you going to wait for him?' She says, "No, I am going to plant the rose today and also see the flower today.' For her, yesterday is a dream, tomorrow a wish and only today is real. So, she wants everything today.

They belong to a great feudal family and they come into contact with three different men in their lives. Ajith's character in the film struggles in today's society and tries to win. Mammootty represents yesterday. He is a man who gave up everything for the society but is sadly forgotten by the society. He represents an angst-ridden man who is forgotten. Abbas is a man the society venerates today. In the film, all these characters come together.

Kandukondain... has two love stories -- of these three men and two women. Life plays a cruel trick on these two young women and they are disinherited of all their properties. And it is only then they realise what real life is and discover what real love is. 'Kandukondain' means being aware of the truth that is always around and that is within you.

It is also about the progression of people from the villages to the cities, overcoming odds and triumphing in the cities. Most romantic illusions about the villages are based on the fact that cities are bad and the villages are great. And the general image is that people come to the cities and become whores and prostitutes and drug-peddlers. Very rarely do you write a story about the city life that is good.

So, you don't have any romantic notion about villages. Do you feel that cities also have a good side to them?

Yes, I do feel that way. I don't have any romantic notions about villages. In villages, paddy fields are green, streams are full, air is moist and in the distance, you have hills. This is what you find in the first six days. On the seventh day, you discover that there are caste prejudices in the villages. On the eighth day, you discover that rain doesn't come when the villagers want it to come. On the ninth day, you come to know that women are exploited there.

Was it from your own experience that you found all these?

Unlike others, I keep going to the villages. At least once a month, I shoot either in Pollachi or Karaikkudi and I listen to these people.

Did you also meet the two women characters in the village?

No. I will tell you something else. I have a brother and we lost our father when I was 15. And that was a big emotional upheaval in my life. Now I am in this field and my brother is an IRES officer. But during the difficult period, we realised who our real friends were and we also discovered ourselves in the process. I used to find this story -- our story -- quite interesting. My brother and I are quite different. But here in the film, I have changed the characters to two women.

Otherwise, I felt it would become autobiographical. When you study two women, you look at Jane Austin's Sense And Sensibility and try to work it as two love stories.

You said one sister is romantic and the other practical. Between yourself and your brother, who is the romantic? Yourself?

It is difficult to say. He is not yet married and I am married, with two daughters (laughs). He is 34. I don't know whether he is still waiting for the dream girl!

I have read that you took your film to some villages and showed it to villagers. Why did you do that before releasing the film?

Some people think that I did that to make the film run better. That's not the reason (why I took the film to the villages). It was not commercial success that was in my mind. See, we had a story and certain characters in our mind. I believe there is a very big gap between the mind screen and the silver screen. We keep reading our story again and again for two years. It took us two years to finish the film -- six months to write the script and one-and-a-half years to make the film.

Now I can't laugh at my jokes, I can't cry in the emotional scenes. I find big emotional gaps and when I transfer it onto the screen, I may be missing out somewhere and my characters may not come through convincingly.

A K Ramanujan said a wonderful line about poetry. He said, 'poems are like little children. You clean them, you bathe them, but they mysteriously dirty themselves again. You clean them again and they dirty themselves again'. Even Ramanujan did not write all his poems in one shot. You clean and chisel it. And, that being a personal medium, it's fine.

But here, it's a mass medium. You get a kind of vibe when I tell you a story, but when 800 people are together in a theatre and I tell the same story, they react like a homogenous mass. I wanted to study whether the story was reaching them and how many gaps there were between the audience and me. And I am plugging those gaps.

Did you find gaps to be plugged?

Oh yes! I will tell you. Mammootty's character had gone to the war and in the process, lost his leg. In him, you see the angst of a man who went for the Indian Army's overseas operation. He is very upset with the way he is treated by society. See, I was shooting the film from February to April last year, and the Kargil war broke out around the time.

When I showed the film in November to people and tell them that you people don't care about the Army, they are alarmed. A tailor comes and says, No sir, that's not true. I sent a hundred rupees to the Army. Another person in Erode says, No, you are wrong. I sent two hundred rupees. The Army is placed high in their minds now.

So, I cannot gloss over and not say where he was. I had to make it clear that it was the IPKF operation in Sri Lanka and we lost 1200 men not for our country, but for somebody else. When those bodies came back, there was nobody to receive them. Neither did their wives come on television nor did their children get free seats in schools and colleges. It was not like operation Vijay.

They were also brave men, they too had listened to the same Army headquarters. But we choose to forget some and venerate others. Even today in Siachen, people are dying but nobody talks about it.

I had to make this very clear. Otherwise, Mammootty's character cannot communicate with the audience.

Did they feel that you had gone wrong in your assessment?

They felt that the character was shouting for no reason. They felt that he was just a drunkard.

Did you sit with them and watch the film? Or, did you watch their reaction from somewhere else?

They never saw me watching them. We were sitting in another room and watching those 20 men and 20 women see the film on television. Then, we arranged a group discussion, but I was not part of that. They were photographed and I sat in another room and watched. Only in the end, I went there to give them gifts.

How did they react then?

Great! They said they loved the film. That made me confident.

How did you get the idea of taking the film to the people and have their responses?

We do this regularly in advertising.

Only a few more days for the release of the film... are you tense?

Yes. You never know, after all this, you can go completely wrong. The sample size can be wrong. The kind of people you chose can be wrong. So, I don't know....

Why did you take it only to the villages and not the cities?

Because I am quite sure of about what the urban market likes.

You said earlier you did not romanticise villages. Your viewpoint must be visible in the film too. How did the villagers react to your portrayal of villages?

A strange change has taken place in the villages and villagers. Earlier you saw a completely different culture in the villages. But in the last 15 years, it has changed completely. The influence of satellite television is amazing. People in the cities and the villages watch the same programmes. So, the language of the villagers is not different from the language of the cities now.

There is a kind of uniformity in the behaviour too. So also are the ideals and dreams. Everybody wants to be successful financially. Everybody wants to be in software. Even in the villages, the youngsters want to study Java and go to US. They do not want to go to a town and become a vehicle inspector.

You had so many big stars acting in your film. Was it difficult to manage all of them?

You have to take care of not one but seven egos! But I must confess that I had some of the most well-behaved set of artists one could have asked for. So, I never had any problem.

Is it true that artistes have big egos and they have to be pampered all the time?

Yes and no. Creative people are more sensitive than other individuals. When you have two or three people in a frame, each person should be made to feel that he or she is doing a good job, however insignificant the length of her dialogue is. That's the job of the director -- to make each one feel special. A class may have 40 children, but a good teacher is the one who makes all 40 feel that they are his or her special students.

But teachers do have likes and dislikes and they love some students more...

They may do it. But the ideal situation is when she can make all 40 feel special. A good teacher will never shower special love on some students. That is one aspect.

The other aspect is that artistes are sensitive and you have to handle their egos and all that stuff. But we are dealing with very talented people. So, the extent of irritation was never with regard to small things like 'why she is getting that dress and why I am not getting such a dress' etc. These are the kind of normal problems that you anticipate. These small things were not at all a problem on the sets of my film.

Do they fight for such silly things?

That's what happens and then it turns into a big fight! But we never had those problems. We had a great time at karaikkudi. Aishwarya and Tabu became good friends after the film. Ajith was always ready to learn from Mammootty. Aishwarya and Tabu would sit and ask Mammootty how he prepared for scenes. Mammootty would teach them the Net and on the whole, we had a great time. We would eat together in one room and we had e-mail and other things in another room. We had an entertainment centre where all the artistes would meet and enjoy. It was like going back to a students hostel. As Mammootty said, all of you are in shorts and I feel I have gone back to school! Great fun, we had.

Is it because you have always been in Madras that you make Tamil films and not films in your mother tongue, Malayalam?

Yes. I have been in Madras from my formative years, that is, from the eighth standard onwards. It is not that I want to make only Tamil films. I do want to make Malayalam films. I love Malayalam as a language and the kind of films they make in Malayalam.

But the market and reach of Tamil cinema is huge. Next to Hindi, it is Tamil cinema that is popular all over the world. Then, you have some people you like, people you like to work with, like A R Rahman. It was not a definite decision, it was not my intention to make Tamil films, it just happened.

After living here for so long, how comfortable are you with Malayalam and Malayali culture?

I think I am more fascinated with the things that are in Kerala. But you get to work with the best set of people here. You can't get a better guy than A R Rahman. Rahman also happens to be my best friend. Mani Ratnam is also a good friend of mine. These are the people I know. Sujatha Sir is a writer. If I get a chance to work with M T Vasudevan Nair or Devarajan Master, I will be there in Kerala. If I had been in the industry 30 years ago, I would probably be working in Malayalam.

Do you know the villages in Kerala and the life of the villagers the way you know Tamil Nadu's villages? Do you know Kerala culture like you know Tamil culture?

Of course I know. I go regularly to Kerala. I may be a Malayali staying outside, but I know the language, the people and the culture. I think I will have to make a Malayalam film to convince you! You don't seem to be convinced! Do you want me to recite Vallathol? (Vallathol is a great Malayalam poet. Menon laughs uproariously and recites a poem beautifully) These are the opening lines of Magnalana Mariam.

Now, do you want me to recite Kathakali padam? (sings, again wonderfully) See these are all a part of me.

Which language do you think in?

There you are! I think in Malayalam. I say my dialogues in Malayalam and tape it and Sujatha Sir listens to them and writes in Tamil. It is strange, but I don't write in English. English is an alien language for me. I may be crying but when I cry, I can think only in Malayalam. When I am emotional too, I can think only in Malayalam.

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