“THIS is not the movie I wanted to make,” director of the latest Telugu film Malli Malli, Raj Aditya, kept saying to members of his family. As if it was the message he wished to convey, he committed suicide by hanging himself in a hotel room in Secunderabad early Saturday morning on March 21 when the movie was released.
Son of Malayalam lyricist, film and television serial director Sreekumaran Thampi, Raj began his directorial career in early 2002 with the Telugu film Ishtam. He directed one popular Malayalam serial Thambathya Geethangal. His first independent direction was Pourudu of SS Creations.
The next film was Malli Malli, the shooting for which began last August. His sister Kavitha Thambi told Expresso that on the evening before his death he spoke to her and their mother in Dubai, but sounded very low. He had mentioned to all members of the family that he was passionately involved with this off-beat low-budget film produced by an industrialist. However, three weeks after the film was completed in January and passed censorship, there was a remark by the distributors and then the producer wanted him to make changes in the movie. “Raj told us that the movie had a cohesive screenplay which would be spoilt if something was changed,” she said
Forced to re-shoot, he was ready to compromise but had asked for one month’s time. “Without his permission, the release date was announced as March 21 and he had just nine days to write new scenes, to do the reshoot, edit, mix and all the technical difficulties that went with it. By the end of it he was a complete wreck and felt mentally tortured over an announcement to the media that the reshoot was the director’s idea,” said Kavitha.
His wife Deepti Nair who is seven months pregnant with their second child said that he was very concerned that his image as a director was being tarnished. He pinned lots of hope on this pet project and took it as a personal humiliation. His elder daughter Tanmaya has just been admitted to the Pre-kg. “This movie was his labour of love. He had an immaculate reputation as a person and for us, it is as if life has completely ended,” said Kavitha. With a distinct academic record at school and college in Chennai, he was a good singer, composer, played the mridangam and classical guitar.
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