CHENNAI: Sudden disappearances of people can be disturbing. But S Madhan’s disappearance – the latest fallout being the arrest of SRM Group Chairman Pachamuthu – was as sudden as his emergence in Kollywood. His production house, Vendhar Movies, within months of being founded by him in 2011, managed to distribute some of the big budget films, something that requires a lot of financial muscle.
But it is not the interesting scripts of the movies he distributed or produced that made him the well-known name that he is in Tamil Nadu. Rather it was an intriguing note left behind by him on May 27 last claiming he was headed to Varanasi to attain ‘samadhi’ since he did not want yet another birth, which raised wide curiosity. Whether or not he managed to attain ‘samadhi’ is not known, but Madhan’s persona, pieced together by talking to people close to him, has enough twists and turns to make it an interesting storyline for a Kollywood movie.
If you had met Madhan about 12 years ago, he would have come across as a typical middle class guy, except that he had two wives. Born to school headmistress mother R S Thangam and father Balakrishnan, who worked as an engineer, Madhan spent his childhood and schooling in Nagercoil, a town in the southern tip of Tamil Nadu. In school, he met Sindhu, with whom he fell in love and subsequently married her. He later married Sumalatha, whom he met in Kerala during his visit there. Both the wives live in separate houses in Chennai along with their children.
According to people who know Madhan well, he aspired to become an engineer during his school days. But at that point of time Tamil Nadu comparatively had fewer engineering colleges, and Madhan’s score in the board exams did not fetch him a seat. So, he had to settle for a bachelor’s course in science instead. But after a year, he dropped out and managed to get admission in an engineering college in Pune, Maharashtra from where he graduated in 1995.
It was during his stint in Pune that the seed of entrepreneurship germinated in his mind, grew later in life and took him to new heights. To begin with, he joined a private company in Hyderabad for a short while but did not quite like it. In the early 2000s, he started dabbling in brokering in college admissions after getting introduced to the heads of a few prominent educational institutions. Soon he became a key contact person for admissions, mainly for medical courses, in three private institutions in the State.
Madhan realised brokering was a money spinner since financially wealthy families from other states did not mind sparing a few lakhs of rupees as commission to get a seat for their children in an engineering or medical course. Being able to converse in three languages – Hindi, Telugu and Malayalam – apart from Tamil helped him strike a chord with his clients. That was when Madhan’s life, including his looks, started to change: a thick golden bracelet in one hand, a golden strap watch in another and a huge gold chain around his neck became his trademark accessories. People who knew him from up close, talk about the extravagant life he lived. “The rent of this office is `1 lakh. But he spent nearly `60 lakh to lavishly decorate the interiors,” says an assistant director, who resides in the same Senthil Andavar Street at Dhanalakshmi Colony at Vadapalani as Madhan. Over the years, Madhan became a big shot in admission brokering and was seen as a trusted agent. “Parents had to visit him personally and pay him the cash he sought. In return, he would just give a small slip with the particulars of the student. Parents would then visit the specified college and submit the slip of paper. That was all. The college would call up Madhan for verification and seal the deal,” informs another police officer, who is part of the team investigating cheating complaints against Madhan.
For Radhakrishnan, a parent who is in a piquant situation after Madhan vanished, the note said “F.P” – which he assumed means ‘Full Payment’. “I gave him `50 lakh and he assured a seat for my daughter. But he is absconding now and my daughter is yet to join any college. Like her, the fates of hundreds of students hang in a balance,” he shares.
By and by, Madhan started driving a BMW. And then came Vendhar Movies. It is said he partnered with one advocate, who is also his close friend, to start Vendhar Movies. The official website of the company says it was founded in 2011. But police sources say Madhan had been into the business since 2008. The advocate friend soon disassociated himself from the company and the Vendhar Movies logo started sporting the photo of SRM group Chairman Pachamuthu, which almost made everyone believe the film production house belongs to Pachamuthu. Later the image disappeared from the logo and Pachamuthu’s side claimed they had no connection with Vendhar Movies. In 2011, Madhan contested the Assembly election from Tirunelveli as an Independent, during which, reporters in the district recall, he spent money like water. “Every reporter who visited him was given at least a few thousand rupees. The money he doled out was so much that one reporter resigned the job and joined as his public relations officer (PRO) during the elections,” quips a senior reporter working for a Tamil weekly. However, he could just manage around 2,500 votes against his name.
The fairy tale success story of wealth and influence began to fade when a few of the films Vendhar Movies produced or distributed bombed at the box office. Another source of trouble was the introduction of the NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) for MBBS admissions in medical colleges. According to police estimates, he had collected around `75 crore from 111 parents promising admissions. The Supreme Court’s ruling that changed the way admissions are done in private medical colleges, coupled with the straining of his relationship with the college management had left him with no option.
Police do not believe in the ‘samadhi’ theory. They suspect the sudden disappearance could well be a clever ploy to escape from many of the problems that have surrounded Madhan and at the same time safeguard all the wealth he had accumulated. Not just Madhan, six other men who worked out of his Vadapalani office, including his manager Sudhir, are yet to be traced. Shortly after he disappeared, the police found he had briefly stayed in a lodge on the banks of the Ganga at Varanasi. He had stayed there a few days earlier as well, which led the police to suspect Madhan had planned it all well in advance.