Not just a director

Director R. S. Prasanna tells about his experience of writing special dialogues for Inji Iduppazhagi

Still from Inji Iduppazhagi

It’s been a while since director R. S. Prasanna went back to his engineering roots. He did so recently when he set up the kolu padi at his home, for this Navarathri. “Whoever thought this is where I’ll make use of my engineering education,” laughs Prasanna.

Some other skills he’s learned over the years have come in more handy though — like screenwriting, for example. He has just wrapped up his writing work for the Arya-Anushka Shetty bilingual, Inji Iduppazhagi . For those not in the know, Prasanna has written the ‘special dialogues’ for the film directed by his erstwhile guru, Prakash Kovelamudi. “Prakash was my first boss. When I landed in Mumbai after passing out of L. V. Prasad Film and TV Academy with a gold medal, it was he who gave me a chance to be a junior writer. When he asked me to be a part of this film, I just had to,” says Prasanna. It also helps that Prasanna is always game for collaborative efforts. “Arun Vaidyanathan handled ‘special dialogues’ for me in Kalyana Samayal Saadham (KSS). Such attempts are creatively fulfilling and lend a much-needed outsider’s perspective too,” he says.

In writing for

Inji Iduppazhagi , Prasanna has drawn from his trademark humour and effortless banter. “Mine is an everyday, functional Tamil, and that’s what I’ve used for the film too.”

His desire to collaborate does not stop with writing dialogues. “I’ve always dreamt of directing someone else’s script. How lovely it must be to react to another’s writing! I’ve always harboured this desire, but it got more pronounced after I directed

On A Quest . I realised the great joy in just being a part of something without necessarily owning it. And if people like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg can collaborate, why not us?”

Currently, Prasanna is shuttling between Chennai, where his family lives, and Mumbai, where he’s prepping for the Hindi remake of KSS . Anand L. Rai is producing the movie, in association with Sashikant and C. V. Kumar, and Prasanna says it is a joy to learn from someone as accomplished and rooted as Rai. And yes, Prasanna has incorporated some improvements in the new script.

And that’s not all! He’s also working on a Tamil script, something on the lines of an

Indiana Jones movie. “After all this writing, the reward will be hitting the sets on the first day of the shoot for a new film. The beginning of another dream,” he signs off.