From darkness to light

Cinematographer Ravi Varman speaks to VISHAL MENON about overcoming a childhood that could’ve birthed a criminal, and working on Mani Ratnam’s Kaatru Veliyidai

July 08, 2016 05:51 pm | Updated October 18, 2016 12:44 pm IST

MP

MP

“I’ve never seen my mother smile,” says cinematographer Ravi Varman, as a casual late-night interview turns intense. “Every time I close my eyes before I look into the viewfinder, I see her tired face, full of doubt… as though she’s worried about me. So, I want to see more light, more colours, in my frame… colours that bring happiness.”

Ravi’s mother died when he was 12, in Thanjavur. He’d lost his father earlier, and her death, orphaned him and his siblings. “I can never forget that night. I’d gone to bed early. My mother took my blanket because she was cold. I cried, and she had to wrap it back around me. The next morning, I was playing when my brother came running. My mother had died in her sleep. I stopped believing in God after that,” he says. “I still live with that guilt. My mother would have been with me today if I’d not cried that night.”

Without the courage to go on, Ravi decided to commit suicide. As he lay down and waited on the railway track, a policeman lured him with a plate of biryani. He had found in Ravi a foil to slap on a case of theft. “I was beaten for 15 days. They would call it a ‘doubt case’ and put children in a juvenile home. It’s a place where the innocent become criminals. I was there for a month.”

A relative bailed him and took him back to Thanjavur, where Ravi realised he’d been branded a thief. “I vowed that if I were to ever return to my village, it would be in a Mercedes, like a king. If not, in a coffin. I ran back to the station and hopped on the Rameswaram Express.” It was the same train he had been waiting for a month ago.

Arriving in Madras in 1987 with nothing but a lungi and a T-shirt, he slept on the streets, shifting between places to avoid another ‘doubt case’. One of his father’s closest friends took him in, promising a better life — “He asked me to clean his bathrooms.”

Ravi found a job as a server at the Amaravathi Hotel after a month of ‘blinding hunger’. “The lunch they served waiters is still the tastiest I’ve eaten,” he smiles. He made merry with the Rs.150 a month he earned. Armed with ‘what felt like a fortune’, Ravi marched to Moore Market to buy a ‘Singapore veshti ’. But, he ended up stopping at an imported goods store, fascinated by the cameras on display. “A particularly shiny model caught my eye but the hawker said it cost Rs. 400. It was either fake or he felt sorry for me, but I got it for Rs. 115. With my first earning, I bought a Zenit 6.”

Ravi used his free time to shoot an acting-aspirant colleague. “Back in my village, my neighbour had called on a photographer for a family photo. In one of those photos, I found the same tired face of my mother in the background, staring at the camera. She was a silhouette in a photo that was already out of focus, and I tried very hard to fix it. Had he been a better photographer, I would have had a picture of my mother to treasure. Perhaps, this regret made me buy that camera.”

He found solace in photography. Ravi picked up a Rapidex: English to Tamil book and a book on photography. “I wanted to learn English, so I’d watch every film at Alankar. I didn’t understand a word, but dialogues didn’t matter… the visuals were enough.”

Smitten by cinema, Ravi began accompanying his actor-friend as he looked for opportunities. He found work at a production house that was making a Ramarajan-starrer. “The film flopped and I was back on the streets.” That film was called Neram Nallairukku!

Luckily, his guru, photographer K.V. Mani introduced him to V. Ranga, a cinematographer who was working on Rajinikanth’s Mappillai (1989). The six years under Ranga gave Ravi’s life the much-needed stability, but after the sudden death of director Rajasekhar, whose films were shot by Ranga, work dried up. “Then, Balu Mahendra asked me to approach a busier cinematographer, who unlike him, would work in two or three movies a year. A friend suggested I meet Ravi K. Chandran; I’d loved his work in Honest Raj .”

After Jalamarmaram (1999) and Santham (2001), the doors to Hindi and Tamil films were open for the cinematographer. Already a star in film circles, he wondered if his news of his achievements had filtered down back home. “It was 2006 and I’d completed Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu . It used to be a dream to watch a film in Sathyam, and here I was, watching my film’s première there. As I left, I overheard people say ‘What a beautifully shot film’, ‘great camera work’. I drove my pregnant wife home and walked back to Sathyam. I reached Anna Flyover and, as images from my past kept flashing before me, I removed my shirt and went to sleep under the flyover, ignoring phone calls from all the big names in Tamil cinema — it was the same place I’d slept in when I first reached Madras.”

Ravi’s work continued to bring him glory, with his imagery appealing to the aesthetics of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Anurag Basu, and Imtiaz Ali. His upcoming projects include Jagga Jasoos , Hollywood film Heartbeats and Mani Ratnam’s Kaatru Veliyidai.

Despite his limited education and incorrect English, it amuses Ravi that his work communicates with many. “Every time I message someone important, I get it checked with my daughter!”

A father of two, how much about Ravi’s life do his children know? “They cover their ears when I start telling them my story; they can’t bear to listen to it. In cinematography, the magic lies in shooting scenes without revealing where the light comes from. In life, it’s the other way round. No one should see where the darkness comes from.”

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.