Director Prasanna cannot take a breather. Soon after his successful Kalyana Samayal Saadham , he was roped in by Chinmaya Mission, a Hindu spiritual organisation, to make The Quest, a biography of the organisation’s leader Chinmayananda Saraswati.
Prasanna compares Chinmayananda to his hero in literary fiction — Howard Roark of The Fountainhead . “Both are uncompromising, and refuse to submit to populist notions.” For the better part of 2014, he was busy with the post-production work of The Quest. The year closed with perhaps the most important announcement in his career: that The Quest is ready for release, and that a Hindi remake of Kalyana Samayal Saadham (KSS) will see him directing a big Bollywood actor in 2015.
“C. V. Kumar, after watching KSS the first time, saw Bollywood potential in it. The topic was universal, even though the culture needed some tweaking,” says Prasanna, whose Bollywood connection goes a long way — to his first job as a scriptwriter in Versova (which he calls “the Kodambakkam of Mumbai”). The director wryly comments many people had already called KSS a “Hindi film in Tamil”. “I suppose they were referring to the finish,” he adds. He understands that the Brahmin customs shown extensively in the original may not work in the remake. “I am at present adapting the script to Bollywood. We should start filming soon.”
Meanwhile, an unusual release awaits The Quest . “The idea is to release it in phases across the world and have people pick up passes from the local Chinmaya Mission centre,” explains Prasanna.
The film, after all, isn’t made for profit, and hence, the plan is to have the Mission purchase tickets and make them available for free pick-up on its website. There are also plans to screen it at all popular film festivals. “As it isn’t a commercial film, I have the freedom to innovate with respect to its release. I may even have it available on Netflix quickly.”
In doing this film after KSS , the director confesses to taking after a veteran like Priyadarshan who alternates between a commercial comedy like Khatta Meetha and a profound film like Kanchivaram . “If people who watch the film become interested in spirituality, and understand that it’s not the same as religion, that’s success enough.”
