Rajeshkumar's novel in celluloid

Rajesh Kumar , a popular Tamil writer whose novels possess a range of emotion, romance, vengeance and crime in them. One of his famous novels titled 'Iruttil Oru Vaanambadi' is now being made into a feature film titled "Agaraadhi". The film's audio-launch was held yesterday in the city where Rajesh Kumar spoke at length about his career.

Answering a query raised earlier by director-actor K. Bhagyaraj as to why he was hesitant to take the plunge into the world of cinema despite achieving so much in writing, Rajesh Kumar said that "I too nursed such ambitions in my younger days. Many producers used to come to my house; they would pay a small sum as advance and ask me to 'start' narrating the story to them.

"They would then ask me to come to Chennai for 'further discussions'. I would believe their words and proceed to Chennai only to be told by them to 'bring about some changes' in the screenplay so as to suit the frontbenchers or the so-called 'B' and 'C' centres. The changes so incorporated in the story would make it look totally unlike any of my stories. That's why I decided to stay away.

"As far as Agaradhi is concerned, when director Naga Venkatesh approached me for the permission to make a film out of my story, the first condition I put to him was that my story and dialogues shouldn't be tampered with My second condition was that I'd never 'come to Chennai'. Only after Venkatesh agreed to meet those two conditions did I agree to the making of the film.

"Venkatesh would have come to me at least 30-40 times; yes, he would have flown to Chennai and Coimbatore this many times to give final touches to the story. Its an interesting story that's bound to become a winner at the box-office" concluded Kumar.

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