Ripples on the brain

In one of his interviews some 6 months ago, Maniratnam had said that he was making consecutive movies (Guru and Lajjo) in Hindi because of lack of good scripts in Tamil. Of course, before the release of the Tamil version of Guru, he did claim that Gurukant could be from anywhere in India and speak any language, but that was clearly to market the tamil dubbed version of the movie.

So, my question is why was Guru made in Hindi? You can choose one of the options below:

A) It is because, at this point, Kollywood doesn’t have an actor who can play the role of Guru (remember he has to show the changes in the character over 30-40 years of his lifetime). I can think of three actors who are Mani-worthy - Surya, Madhavan, Siddharth - the three heroes in “Ayudha Ezhuthu” (”Yuva“’s tamil version). But, in my opinion, all of them fall short what Guru needs. Surya is still very stiff, Madhavan and Siddharth are not mature/old enough to portray the changes required as the character ages.

B) Since this movie is anyway a rehash of his earlier movies (Nayagan, Iruvar, Roja) and Mani doesn’t have anything new to offer, it is safe to make it for a new target segment that hasn’t been exposed to his earlier works. An average Tamil movie-goer will be continuously reminded of Mani’s earlier movies as he watches Guru.

C) Notwithstanding his denial that this is a biopic, Mani wants this movie to closely follow Dhirubhai’s life. So, making it in any language other than Hindi (where the character has origins in Tirunelveli instead of Gujarat ) will not do justice to the script just like the main characters in Iruvar could not have been from Mumbai.

D) Pure market-sense. Making the movie in Hindi will appeal to a wider audience base, will mean better publicity (premiers in Toronto and New york city). The Hindi-speaking NRI’s, who generate most of the revenues for the mediocre Hindi movies nowadays, will simply relish the this one which is different from the ones they are used to.

E) All of the above

You can also give me a completely different reason.