Wearing his tattered vest tucked in the dirty khaki trousers, ‘Auto’ Chandran was getting ready as usual to take his Savaris at the Jeeva Auto Stand at Hope College. His wife, Ajitha, places the EB card in his hands and tells him, “Don’t forget to pay the electricity bill today. It’s already late. Then we will have to face disconnection of service.”
The auto driver, whose Tamil novel ‘Lockup’ became the storyline of today’s box office hit ‘Visaranai’, bagged the Amnesty International Italy’s ‘Cinema for Human Rights’ award in the 72nd International Film Festival of Venice recently.
As ‘Visaranai’ is showing also at the movie hall ‘Peelamedu’ Manis, which is a few yards away from Chandran’s home, his neighbours are enthralled to give their claps and whistles when the film features at the end, the auto driver’s address in the International Film Festival of Venice.
Admiring film director Vetrimaran, Chandran says, “Though Vetrimaran sat beside me and addressed at the film festival in Venice, he has featured only my speech in the movie. I have no words to laud such a filmmaker, who has great respect for activists-cum-writers like me.”
Sharing his experience of watching ‘Visaranai’ on the day of its release in KG Cinemas, Chandran says, “When the audience discovered me as the one appearing in the film, it took me over an hour to ‘escape’ from them, accepting their affectionate hugs, posing with them for numerous selfies and signing their autographs.”
On another occasion, a customer travelling in Chandran’s autorickshaw, gazed at him for a little while, and recognised to her surprise that he was none other than the one in the film!
“Her joy knew no bounds, when I told her that I am the author of the novel ‘Lockup’, which is the storyline of ‘Visaranai’,” adds Chandran. Nevertheless, expressing worries on commercial Tamil movies, he pointed out, “Since Tamil cinema has been wrongly defined as a mere entertainer with a few romantic lyrics and sensual dance sequences, many film buffs hardly know how to estimate movies on social themes like ‘Visaranai’. I felt a bit disappointed when such film viewers admired me just for my appearance on the screen.”
Chandran, who recently addressed an audience at the special screening of ‘Visaranai’ for magistrates in Chennai, underlines that the film, dealing with the highhandedness of police, has pinned its hopes on the judiciary and the media, who are the only saviours of the victims of police brutality.
The special screening at the Government Music College, Chennai, witnessed the participation of as many as 100 judges across the State.