Riding on the commercial success of Attakathi, I went on to make Kabali and Kaala.

So they agreed to distribute the film, and it did go on to do well, leaving both the producer and distributor with a measure of profit. In any case, once the film was done, the distributors were convinced that it would succeed commercially, its politics notwithstanding. I also managed to fit in a scene which referenced beef-eating. Since the on-location shoot was in villages where Dalits lived in large numbers, we finally did have Ambedkar in our footage-he was on every village wall, and there were umpteen statues everywhere.

I closed my eyes, begged pardon from Babasaheb and took off his photograph, and continued shooting the film. My technicians exhorted me to give up on this shot and continue. So either you remove the photograph and continue filming or you stop filming.’ And the producer feels that if we do not anticipate the audience’s reaction and go ahead, chances are the audience will vandalize the screening theatre. The audience in Madurai will not countenance seeing Ambedkar thus.

If you are to retain that picture, the producer is sure to incur a loss. When we asked why, he said, ‘You’ve got a photograph of Ambedkar on a wall in the hero’s house. Just then a person from the producer’s office came and told us that the filming had to stop. The art director Ramalingam had got the hero’s home ready and in place.īook Cover of The Dalit Truth: The Battles for Realizing Ambedkar’s Vision For a while, things went smoothly, until the day when the crew was getting ready to shoot the protagonist’s ‘entry’ scene. We signed a contract and started filming with a totally new cast and technicians. When I was looking to interest a producer in my story, I met one who was taken with it, and he agreed to support the film. On the surface, it appears a comedy, but its background, that is the social context it features, has to do with Dalit lives and realities, and I had written the script in that manner. I would like to narrate here an incident that unfolded when I was filming my first venture, Attakathi. The problem was that producers and distributors did not think that this emergent new audience could guarantee commercial success. So, we had an audience, comprising critical-minded Dalit youth and those from non-Dalit communities who were committed to an anti-caste worldview. This was largely due to the political changes brought in by Dalit assertion, and also because the films we made were true and resonant in a way that could not be refuted. When I came to cinema, things had somewhat changed.

The Dalit Truth by K. Raju