The title ‘Malgudi Days’ invariably takes people on a trip down the memory lane, thanks to the TV show made by Shankar Nag on R K Narayana’s collection of short stories. Now, a film carrying the same title, featuring Vijay Raghavendra, has grabbed attention, for it features the actor playing a character in two shades — an elderly writer named Lakshmi Narayana Malgudi, who goes down the memory lane, in which he is seen as a teenaged school student.
According to Vijay Raghavendra, there are many connecting points to Malgudi Days. However, his film, which is directed by Kishore Moodbidri is all about “being human” at every stage of life, he says. “As a writer, Lakshmi Narayana Malgudi, most of the time, has a purpose to travel to his past, where he enjoys the younger days of his life. They say, ‘one should get into the skin of the character,’ and this came true while I got myself to play these two shades,” Vijay Raghavendra adds. Ask him which role was tougher to play, and he says, ‘the writer’s character.
“The schoolboy role was easy to play as I had my own connecting point, which was real. For the writer’s role, I had to take references from legendary personalities like Dr. Rajkumar, my father,
C Ashwath, Loknath, Dattanna, and I held them as sources of inspiration at different places.” Vijay had to put on prosthetic makeup to get the looks of the 70-year-old, which was done by Roshan G. Vijay Raghavendra wants audience to experience the journey of Lakshmi Narayana Malgudi, the imaginary character he plays in the film. “We are all just the product of our own past, which is something we enjoy at various stages. Unfortunately, in our busy lives, everyone tends to oversee that, and we think that we have lost a lot of things, which is actually not the case. Everything is there, and all we need is to dig out the good things. That is what the team and I intend to say through Malgudi Days,” says Vijay.