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HARD WORK ‘It took me nearly nine gruelling years to gather enough information’

Director A.M.R. Ramesh has proved his nature evidently through his critically acclaimed film “Cyanide”. The director, now popularly know as Cyanide Ramesh, gained immense appreciation for his remarkable presentation of the police action after the assassination of former Prime Minster Rajiv Gandhi.

Dealing with such sensitive issues so sensibly without giving scope for any controversy, Ramesh proved that any serious issue could be treated rationally. An alumni of the film institute Chennai, Ramesh cherished the dream of becoming a film director. Joining the director’s course in 1981, he began his career directing a Tamil television serial which depicted the lives of four friends who meet after over 20 years. “I received an encouraging response for the serial, and it boosted my morale,” he said.

It was in 1991, that the turning point of his film career came. He visited Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, where Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. “I was in Tamil Nadu when I came to know about the horrific incident. I rushed to a hospital where the bodies of victims where brought after the suicide attack. I posed as a journalist and went to see the situation inside the hospital. After witnessing the gut-wrenching scene, the only thing which was lingering in my mind was the incident. I kept brooding over it and thinking about the people who were behind it. That is when I decided to transform that appalling incident into a film,” says Ramesh. He left Chennai and landed in Bangalore in 1997, and joined as assistant director to R. V. Uday Kumar. But the assassination was still haunting him. With hopes of giving shape to his ambitious project, he met the then Deputy Commissioner Police (DCP) Kempayya, who proved to be a great help, giving vital details about the assassins’ gruesome encounter in Bangalore three months after the attack.

“It took me nearly nine gruelling years to gather enough information from various sources before making it into a movie.” Divulging the most shocking discovery during his investigation, he says he was stunned to know that the couple who were sheltering the accused in Bangalore, where his former neighbours.“I knew this couple personally, but they never evoked any suspicion about their activities and involvement with the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). They appeared so normal. I had the mountainous task of interviewing them as they were jailed for their involvement,” he said.

As against the nine years, he took to investigate and finalise the script,the entire shoot of the film took just 29 days.

But it was the mere beginning of another struggle to release it. “Though I produced the film when I did not find any producer, finding a willing distributor was a difficult task. But somehow I got the film released and it did remarkably well at the box office,” he says.

After the success of “Cyanide”, the acclaimed director is all set to remake the film in Hindi, for which he is finalising the characters. He said that discussions were going on with eminent actors like Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri. The film will be produced by K. Sera Sera productions. The film is scheduled for shooting in February next year. The title of the film is “21/05/1991 – Hunt for the Killers of Rajiv Gandhi”.

He is also ready with his next script — this time on Veerappan. Ramesh said he has been working on the script for nearly six years now.

The director believes that the audience is intelligent enough to judge the film’s credibility; films of mere violence and bloodshed won’t do. With an intention of making a commercial film, he is scheduled to direct “Minchina Ota”, where, for the first time, actor brothers Murali and Vijay Raghavendra will share the screen.

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