'Marina beach is the hero of the film'

Pandiraj, who made the delightful children's film Pasanga was one of the most talented finds of 2009. The film was much appreciated and won the National Award for best Tamil film. Pandiraj won the Best Screenwriter award. The film also won some international awards.

After the moderately successful Vamsam, Pandiraj is producer-director of a new film, Marina (yes, named after the beach in Chennai), and it too features children.

In this exclusive interview, the director talks to Shobha Warrier about Marina.

Your first film Pasanga was made with children and now, Marina does the same. Would you like to be known as an expert on children?

I love working with children; it gives me a lot of happiness when I am with them. One has to have a special bonding with children if one wants to extract good work from them. I felt I could do that when I worked with them on Pasanga.

But I was not thinking of making another film with children. In fact, I had two other scripts with me. Marina was planned in a short time.

How did Marina happen?

I was at the Marina beach one day with a friend and his family. A boy came to us with soondal (boiled and garnished chickpeas). He recognised me from some magazine pictures and told me he came from the same native place as me, Sivaganga.

I asked about his background. His name was Balan and he had studied up to the eighth standard, and after that, he was sent to Chennai to work as his father was deep in debt. Then, he said, "It's the story of all the little boys who sell soondal."

I soon found out that most of the soondal boys are from Ramanathapuram, Sivaganaga and Rajapalayam where the land is dry and there is very little rain. While slightly older boys go to Singapore and Malaysia to work, the younger ones come to Chennai.

After talking to these boys, a story started developing in my mind.

Is the film only about the boys, or have you touched upon the lives of others too?

You cannot make a film on Marina and not talk about so many other characters that flock to the beach. Also, you cannot make a film on the stories of the children alone. I wanted to make a film on Marina, the beach. After that, I started observing the others.

You must have seen many lovers on the beach. An interesting thing I noticed was, they come hand in hand, sit on the beach, coochie-coo and then go back fighting!

Then, you see a lot of men with horses. Also, many mentally challenged people. 

There are also a lot of old people begging for food. If you talk to them, you will find that each and every one has a heartbreaking story to tell. This way, I started adding one character after another. Whatever you see on the beach will be there in the background of the film.

How long did you research Marina beach?

For four or five months. I and my team were at the beach from morning till night to study each and every character who came there.

The story of the film centres on the boys who sell soondal and all the other stories are added to it.

But like Pasanga was a pucca commercial film, Marina also is a commercial package. I am not telling the stories of the boys as tearjerkers; I have told their stories with humour and all the fun that is there in their lives. Like Pasanga, this story too has a lot of humour.

Are you trying to convey any message through the stories of these boys?

Forgive me for going back to Pasanga again because Marina is in the same genre. I tell the boys not to fight, have love and unity within the family. I tell them that it is very important to study and that there is a lot of difference between corporation schools and private schools. But these messages are not direct and in your face but  are conveyed subtly.

At that age they should be studying. You cannot substitute anything for studies.

When you come out after watching the film, each and every one of you should feel how fortunate you are, and how kind God has been to you. Nobody born in this world is an orphan and everybody has someone and it is the responsibility of that someone to hold on to their children!

Have you written the script in the same way that you wrote Pasanga?

No, not at all. It is written in a totally different way from the way I wrote Pasanga.

Was it tough to write a script and make a film on Marina beach?

It was tough. Pasanga was about those whom I knew but this was a totally different world. Here, I am looking at a vast ocean whose extent I cannot even visualise. Similarly, the number of people you see and the number of stories you hear are mind boggling. Everything is like an ocean. Just as it's tough to pick shells from the beach, it was tough to pick the right characters.

It took me a lot of time to write the script. For example, you may notice something, and another person may notice something else and if these things are not in the film you will ask why I omitted them. That is why I said Marina beach itself is like an ocean that has no horizon.

So is the Marina beach the main character in the film?

Yes, Marina is the hero in this film. I didn't have a title for the film when I began shooting. Those who saw us shooting, including policemen who were on the beach, would ask if the title of the film was Marina. Soon, we also started calling the film Marina.  

When you have the beach and the sea as main characters, the camera becomes very important....

I would say the camera and music are more important than the direction. It was tough shooting there. We had to capture Marina as it is and most of the time, we had to hide the camera and shoot the people.

So, are most of the characters real people?

The film has both actors and real people. The love birds in the film are actors. Then, Balan plays a major role in the film. Most of the boys are from the beach itself.

I want to tell you that we are going to admit Balan and three more boys in school when the next academic year starts. After school, they can sell soondal on the beach but they should be in school during the day.

Are you happy that you can do something like this?

I don't know how people will accept it, but it has given me a lot satisfaction and happiness making the film. All of us have worked very hard on Marina.

I feel satisfied that I have made a good film and in turn done a good deed!