Gautam Vasudev Menon, who says he watched his hero Mani Ratnam’s films to learn the craft, recently talked about an embarrassing encounter he had with the master director because of R Madhavan. Menon uttered the words, “I hate Madhavan,” thinking back to the time he mispronounced a story.
Ratnam turned 68 on June 2. O2india released a unique film on the occasion honouring Ponniyin Selvan director Menon, in which he discussed his “Guru.”
In the video, Gautam Menon recounted a number of instances, one of which was Madhavan pressuring the director of Vaaranam Aayiram to tell Mani Ratnam the story of his first film, Minnale.
Menon said, “I was made to go and narrate my first script Minnale to Mani sir by Madhavan. He said, ‘If Mani sir green lights the project, then this project is on.’ I hated Madhavan for that, for making me go through what I thought was going to be an ordeal. Here, I was someone in awe of that man (Mani Ratnam). How could I go narrate my story to him? I botched up the narration. However, somehow the film happened.”
Gautam Vasudev Menon noted in a different interview that Mani Ratnam was not thrilled with the Minnale narrative. But Madhavan decided to work with Menon since he felt bad for him. In 2001, the film, which also starred Abbas and Reema Sen in key parts, opened in theatres.
The protagonist of the tale was a young man who fell in love with the girl who was engaged to his former opponent in college. Minnale proceeded to become a financially successful motion picture.
Later, Madhavan returned to the lead role in the Hindi remake of the Tamil movie, Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein, with Dia Mirza in the lead part. Ten years later, it was also remade as Mr. Duplicate in Kannada.
