Naan Kadavul’s best kept secrets

Bala’s magnum opus is nearing completion and in an exclusive interview to a Tamil tabloid, the director has revealed some of the closely guarded secrets of the movie. Naan Kadavul is mostly shot in the banks of the Hindu holy river Ganges and opens with Arya’s rudradadavam in the shores of the river. While recollecting an incident during the shooting, Bala mentioned that a Sadhu visited the spot after hearing the song ‘Orumuraya Irumuraya’ composed by Ilayaraja and did not leave place until the song was over. “He hails from northern India and did not understand a word of Tamil, however, I could see tears running down his cheeks towards the end of the song,” Bala said. The Sadhu touched Bala’s feet before leaving mentioning that he could decipher the meaning of the song without understanding the language. “Such was the power of music and that was when I realized Ilayaraja’s music has no boundaries,” Bala further added.



Bala has brought to light the lives of Agory Sadhus, who are said to be cannibals surviving on the dead in the banks of Ganges, for the first time in Indian cinema. The movie also focuses on the lives of physically and mentally challenged people and beggars. “I wanted to employ real people in the movie and hence we had to interact with such people a lot to make them deliver the dialogues perfectly,” Bala revealed.

There are scenes of Arya consuming Pooja’s dead body (and Arya plays an Agory) which might invite trouble from the censor board. However, Bala has an equally powerful climax scene in hand just in case the censor officials raise concern. Besides, Bala revealed that the climax fight scene took about one month to shoot. “The fight scenes will be real and we had to work for a month to that effect,” Bala was quoted as saying.