I have never worked as an assistant director or learnt filmmaking but Charan who knew me, believed in me. When he wanted to make a film, I told him my story idea. He liked it told me to make it as it was my idea.

When we worked on the budget, we found that it was a bit high. At that time, Charan had made two films and they had not done that well. It is another matter that both of us acted in one of the films!

So, he couldn't spend a lot of money on his third film. He told me, see man, I can't afford this much money. Then I said, hey, I have this story on street cricket.

Was Lagaan the inspiration?

No. As we are childhood friends, Charan and I used to play a lot of cricket together. At that time, we were not in the industry though our fathers were a part of the industry.

Once while talking, another friend of mine called Philip said we should make a film on street cricket. That happened a long time ago. Now, suddenly that conversation came to my mind and I gave the street cricket idea to Charan. He was impressed and said, we should expand the idea.

At that time, my five assistants and I were working on the first idea. Now that Charan wanted a script on street cricket, I told all of them to take a break for two weeks, and come back with ideas. Everybody came up with two-hero subjects. I didn't like that. I want everyone to be a hero. In Lagaan, we knew that Aamir Khan's team would win but in our film, everybody is a hero. So, no one can guess who will win in the end.

Also Read: 2007's Top Tamil hits so far

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