Kerala abounds in stories about vampires and ghosts. In Technopark too there is a spooky tale. Legend goes that a ghost, Hymavathi, sometimes surprises unsuspecting motorists on a deserted stretch of a road leading out of the back gate. A bunch of techies of UST Global, led by Martin Jose, attempt to get to the bottom of the ‘myth’ with a new horror short film, Alinchuvadu Yakshi .
“I’m not a believer in ghosts and I’ve never ‘seen’ Hymavathi despite taking the very same road home for the past four years. That got me thinking on the story behind the legend. Is there some truth to it or is it someone’s figment of imagination gone viral?” ponders Martin, a senior Java developer.
He started researching on the myth and drew some conclusions of his own. “The area is also home to the University of Kerala, Karyavattom campus’ women’s hostel and now several private hostels too. In the past many an eve-teaser used to haunt the place and trouble the women as they made their way to and from the buildings. Maybe the myth was propagated by some concerned citizens in the hope that the men would stay away out of fear. I wanted to get to the bottom of the story and through it show people that there might be something more to myths than popular perception and to not take things at face value,” he explains.
It was a bike trip to Ramoji film city in Hyderabad last December that inspired Martin to turn short filmmaker.
“I am a keen photographer too. The visit really piqued my interest in the process behind filmmaking and I started learning it myself,” he says.
Alinchuvadu Yakshi , which he wrote, scripted and directed is an almost 25-minutes-long slick tale that’s bound to give viewers the jitters.
It unfolds through the story of two young men, Hari and Sachin, and their creepy experience of a ‘yakshi’ sighting. Woven into the storyline is the tale of a father, a widower, out to protect his daughters. The film has already been viewed more than 5,000 times.
“Save for editing, sound and music, all other roles were performed by my colleagues from UST Global. All of them were very supportive. Our account manager, Hariprasad Krishnapillai, for example, acted as the doctor in the film,” says Martin, who himself acted in the role of Sachin. Adarsh Bhanu plays Hari, while Prasaddas Elimban stars as the widower, Raghavan.
Sebin Thankachan handled the cinematography and they shot the film on a basic Nikon DSLR camera.
“All we had as equipment were the camera, a tripod, a warm light and an umbrella. As such the most challenging part was the night shoot to depict the actual horror scenes. The scenes were shot during late evenings just after the sunset and during the early morning hours just before sunrise and it took several days of shooting, most of them in 10-minute windows. As a result it took four months to complete the shoot,” says Martin, who is already on his next script – a comedy.
