It’s business as usual at the Dr Cherian Frontline Hospital with patients and their families lolling about here and there. It is only when one takes the flight of steps to the emergency ward below, that one gets a clue that a film shoot is indeed taking place here. And it has drawn curious onlookers who have monopolised much of the staircase, jabbering and pointing to what is happening a few feet away. But for the film cast of Idharkuthane Aasaipattai Balakumara, it’s all in a day’s work, as regardless of the noise and the stares they go about their work calmly.
We seem to have intruded during a tense moment in the film, as evidenced by the confusion and dismay on the faces of the lead actors, who as the scene demands are assembled in the emergency ward of a hospital and conferring with one another. The actors in question, Vijay Sethupati, Nandita, Swati and Ashwin, have been up since 9 am for a day-long shoot at the Dr Cherian Frontline hospital in Anna Nagar.
But for all that seriousness, the film’s director and writer Gokul promises that the movie is a comedy flick. He too, is battling a crowd, some of whom cannot resist taking a peek at the monitor. He is downright cagey, not wanting to reveal the movie’s storyline, but that it will keep the audience in splits. And where there is comedy, there is Vijay Sethupati, star of laugh riots such as Pizza and Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom. In this movie, he plays Sumar Munji Kumar, a slum dweller whose primary goal in life is to do things to make Kumudha, (played by Nandita) a girl he loves, happy. He is an innocent sort too. So whatever he does is done on the presumption that it would keep his lady love happy. And director Gokul, explained the role to Nandita in one sentence, “Kumudha is happy”.
Nandita, who is riding high after the success of Attakathi, has tried her best to interpret the character to the director’s satisfaction, as she says, “it is all about the timing”. She continues, “It’s a different take on the love story angle”. For the two-film old and Kannada-speaking Nandita, it was a challenge to get the dialogues right. But then she is learning and improving every day, she says.
So, how was it being paired with Vijay, we ask? “I thought Vijay was a serious kind of person, but he is not like that at all. He gets totally immersed in the character he plays”, she says and adds, “I have been having a ball doing this movie along with Swati, who plays the love interest opposite Ashwin.” The audience will come out of the theatres laughing, she assures. Pasupathy, who never seems to stray from serious cinema, is also acting in this comic entertainer.
Produced by V S Rajkumar, the movie has Mahesh Muthuswamy as cinematographer with music being scored by Siddharth Uppin.