Delving deep into the six emotions of human psyche - Kama (lust), krodha (anger), lobh (greed), moha (desire), madha (pride) and matsarya (jealousy) - is Aaru, the upcoming movie weaved on the mythological story of Betaal Pachisi.
“Through the movie, I have dealt with the six bad emotions of our mind in the form of Betaal narrating a story to king Vikramaditya,” says Gururaja about his debut venture. Tini Tom dons the role of Vikramaditya while Guinness Pakru plays Betaal in the movie.
“The concept of the movie is novel. Betaal narrates a socially-relevant story to Vikramaditya and in between Betaal asks several questions to Vikramaditya. According to the conditions put forth by wily Betaal, Vikramaditya has to answer all the questions, including the theme of the story and its climax, and if the king fails to answer, his head would explode,” explains Gururaja. Betaal unfolds the story of Yamuna, a middle-class girl, who marries old Rathnagaran, an ad filmmaker, to marry off her younger sisters. To mint money, Rathnagaran plans to make Yamuna a model. Then enters Ashok, Rathnagaran’s friend’s son, who falls in love with Yamuna. Between all the emotional turmoil, Yamuna comes across psychiatrist Santhosh. He, as a moral guide, helps her out. Paulami Bhattacharya essays the role of Yamuna while Baburaj dons the role of the doctor. “The film will have all the elements of an entertainer, with right amount of humour, drama and intellect,” says the director.
Mukesh, Vimal Raj, Sajan Palluruthy, Harisree Ashokan, Dharmajan, Thesni Khan and Ponnamma Babu also appear in prominent roles. Mukesh plays Sharma, a statue export businessman, who wants to take revenge against Yamuna for the reasons best known to him. The rest of the movie deals with how Yamuna unspools the tangles around her.
When actors, singers and technicians move to Kollywood in search of greener pastures, interestingly Gururaja, based in Chennai, has come all the way to the God’s Own Country to direct his first film. Ask the advocate-turned-director about it, he says, “I have always felt that Malayali audience are sharper. I believe my story would better be understood by people here.”
Being in the film industry for more than 23 years as a film distributor, he keenly follows all the Mollywood directors right from Bharathan, M T Vasudevan Nair to Renjith. “Peethambaran Irinjalakuda and lyricist Sibi Padiyara (who penned the lyrics for Philips And The Monkey Pen) have helped a lot regarding the Malayalam dialogues,” says Gururaja.
The music is composed by Rabi Devendran, cinematography is by Rameshan, editing L Kesavan and art Sreekumar Poochakal. The film produced under the banner of Gururaja International, will hit the screens on December 5.