‘Nadodikal’, the Tamil film, has enough twists and turns to keep a viewer glued. But at a press conference here on Saturday, director Samudrakkani served yet another twist, perhaps the least expected of all. One of his three heroines, the girl who plays the hero’s sister, is in real life both deaf and dumb.
In the film she plays a normal girl who talks just like any other girl of her age and does all the things that a normal college girl does; romance, make faces, cry, smile, look angry, almost the entire spectrum of emotions. Perhaps the country’s first deaf and dumb heroine. Abhinaya is her name.
‘‘It was after a long search we found Abhinaya. We had to come to Kerala. She hails from here,’’ Samudrakkani told reporters at the face to face organised with the cast and crew of Nadodiagal on Saturday. The director said that Abhinaya was the easiest to deal with. ‘‘She does not get any phone calls nor is she in the habit of taking out a mobile and SMSing,’’ Samudrakkani said.
But that was in a lighter vein. The director meant something else when he said Abhinaya was easy to deal with. ‘‘I act out a scene for her and she absorbs it perfectly. I just had to show her once and she understands. It was almost like telepathy,’’ Samudrakkani said. Her co-star Vijay, too, is bowled over. ‘‘It was amazing to experience the depth of her talent. I was always found lagging. She always got her part right and had to wait for me to catch up,’’ Vijay said.
Emotions came naturally to her but getting the lip movements right might have been rigourous for Abhinaya. Samudrakkani credits Abhinaya’s parents for the convincing manner in which her lips mimicked a line of dialogue. ‘‘They were two wonderful people. Her mother used to write down the dialogues in English and show it to Abhinaya. Then her father demonstrated some signs which this girl automatically translated into near-perfect lip movements,’’ Samudrakkani said. ‘‘During dubbing, we found that the duration of her lip movements matched the length of the lines,’’ he added.
Abhinaya landed the role because a leading heroine, whom Samudrakkani had earlier approached, had rejected the offer becasue she was not paired opposite Sasikumar, the hero. Is she the first dumb and deaf heroine in the country, the director was asked. ‘‘Yes, definitely, without doubt’’ he said. Samudrakkani said it was the first time he was revealing the truth about Abhinaya. ‘‘We did not want to make this a selling point,’’ he said. The film is already a month old and is a declared blockbuster in Tamil Nadu. ‘‘From the reports we get, ‘Nadodikal’ is all set to gross Rs 30 crore,’’ Samudrakkani said.
‘Nadodikal’ is about friendship. ‘‘‘My friend’s friend is a friend’ is the basic theme of the film,’’ Samudrakkani said. In fact, the film is based on a real life incident. ‘‘I have faithfully adapted what had once happened to me and my friends,’’ Samudrakkani said.
He said one of the three heroes, the boisterous character played by Bharani, was moulded on him. ‘‘Actually I wanted to play the role. But since I had acted as villain, that too an older person, opposite Sasikumar in ‘Subramaniapuram’, I realised that people will not accept me as Sasikumar’s friend. So I was on the lookout for someone who looked just like me. That was how Bharani was selected. He was very skinny in ‘Kalloori’. I asked him to put on some weight and grow his hair,’’ Samudrakkani said.
The script for ‘Nadodikal’ was ready way back in 2003. For the last six years, Samudrakkani had been going around meeting producers and stars. ‘‘Everyone wanted changes in the script. This I was dead against. I was clear that I will wait till I find a producer who was willing to make the film as I want it to be made,’’ he said. He found such a producer in Michael Rayappan.
Since the big stars were ‘‘imposing their creativity on his script’’, he asked his friend Sasikumar to don the hero’s role. Both Samudrakkani and Sasikumar worked as co-directors in Ameer’s ‘Paruthiveeran’. Though he had new faces in the lead, the film was made for a relatively high cost of Rs 7.5 crores. ‘‘We overshot the budget by over Rs 2 crore. Of course we did not have to pay our artistes much, but we spent heavily on the technical aspects of the film. Also, we used a number of locations for the film. So lots of shifting and travelling were involved,’’ the director said.
Samudrakkani now is in talks with ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ star Dev Patel and Shahid Kapoor to star in the Hindi version of ‘Nadodikal’. He himself will be directing the Hindi version.
