He is by all accounts a
Gentleman. He is an Indian
who wears Indianness on
his sleeves, a Kadhalan at
heart, and a creative Robot
at work. No Anniyan to us, the Jeans-clad
genius is a brand unto himself in a world
that celebrates actors. We met Shankar
Shanmugham at his tastefully done office
on the East Coast Road. And yes, we are
of course talking about the priceless film
director, now a movie mogul.
Director Shankar has begun shooting the
sequel to the blockbuster film Indian, which
set the cinema industry ablaze in 1996. In
that movie, Kamal Hassan plays a vigilante,
a theme that’s a recurring part of the zippy
director’s cinema folklore. In the course of
the next 20 years, Shankar’s graph steadily
moved upward, except for the occasional
flickers when an odd film or two did not set
the cash box jingling.
Yes, there was a Nayak and as the director
says, “it may have been a box office failure,
but turned out to be television’s cash cow.”
We point to Boys, and he grins. “It was far
ahead of its time.” But we don’t let it go. As
we begin to push our luck, he says, “Sadly,
the movie received a lot of bad press. But
at the theatres, I saw the audience enjoy it,
and no one walked out midway.” He points
out to the film enjoying cult-like status in
the island nation, Sri Lanka, and that it is
doing extremely well in Malaysia. Today
Boys is considered a film that stands tall in
its honest portrayal of teenagers.
