A movie on Chennai’s autodrivers
Autorickshaw drivers won’t win any popularity contests. Especially in Chennai.
The average citizen has zillions of complaints about their attitude, tampered-with meters, fleecing and crass language. And we don’t even want get into a discussion of their driving skills.
But Pushkar and Gayatri don’t think so. “The autodrivers in Chennai are very different from those in Mumbai or Delhi. They have a cool attitude. Even though they work under trying circumstances, they have a keen sense of humour.”
And the husband-wife duo decided to take this rather unusual fascination to its logical conclusion by making a film about autodrivers.
The ad filmmakers hit on the idea around two years ago while returning home from a friend’s house late at night. Their bike broke down and they had to hail an autorickshaw. Their chatty driver entertained them with quite a few interesting tales about his tribe.
“Why not make a film on autodrivers?” they thought. It wasn’t much of a surprise that they decided to call it “Auto.” (Subsequently, though, they changed it to “Oram Po” (literal meaning, ’side do’ or ‘move to the side’, thanks to the Tamil Nadu government’s scheme of providing subsidy to films with Tamil names.)
The movie, which stars Arya, Pooja and Lal, is produced by A.P. Film Gardens. Arya, who has had hits such as “Arindhum Ariyamalum” and “Pattiyal”, is now working on director Bala’s next “Naan Kadavul.” Lal, who is well known for character roles in Malayalam movies, has done roles in Tamil movies such as “Sandkozhi” and “Maruthamalai.”
Nirav Shah, who has done films like “Dhoom” and “Dhoom-II” in Hindi and “Arindhum Ariyamalum” and “Pattiyal” in Tamil, is the cinematographer. The music is by G.V. Prakash, who has had a couple of hits in “Veyyil” and “Kireedam.”
Pushkar and Gayatri are perhaps the only husband-wife team of filmmakers not only in Kollywood, but in the country. They met as students of visual communications at Loyola College, Chennai, and have worked together ever since.
“We edited the college newspaper together, did a lot of freelance work while in college, and have also worked together on all our jobs. That is why we had no problem; we are very comfortable working together,” says Pushkar.
After passing out from college in 1998, they moved into the world of advertising, making films.
Two years later, they got an offer to work on the multi-crore budget Chiranjeevi-starrer “Return of the Thief of Baghdad.” They started off as assistant directors and then took charge of the motion control wing. “After that, I handled motion control for Kamal Haasan’s “Aalavandhan” and Gayatri worked on a French movie,” says Puskhar.
Their next step was a trip to the U.S. where they took courses in filmmaking. Coming back, they resumed making ad films, and got married in 2004.
After getting inspired to make a feature film, they started work on the story and developed it together. “The screenplay went through a couple of drafts, and then we worked on the dialogues with a friend,” says Gayatri.
They took the bound script to Arya in February when he was doing “Pattiyal,” and he liked the story so much he said it would be his next project. “We wanted Arya to do it as he is a natural charmer. He has local appeal, and we wanted to utilise this feature,” she says.
The filmmakers love their city “in spite of the heat, dust and corruption,” and think “autos are the symbol of Chennai.” Their movie has been shot in real locations in the city, and “the idea of Chennai is there throughout.” But the movie also explores the dangerous sport of drag racing that many autorickshaw drivers indulge in.
“We always wanted to make interesting cinema based on the common man’s life in Chennai. There are good movies about Mumbai, but none about Chennai. We wanted to showcase Chennai — its sights, sounds and colours.
“The city has an old world charm in spite of globalisation and it becoming increasingly cosmopolitan. That is what we wanted to bring out; this film cannot happen anywhere except in Chennai,” the duo says.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
looks good.. but will arya turn on the meter or not? THAT is the question
Well, I know Pushkar and Gayatri….But that Baghdad movie never got made right? After some Koran fiasco! haha!!
Pushkar still has his fidel castro beard?
But one thing, I hope they show Chennai auto drivers as cheaters, thieves, murderers and plain bastards! Any other version of such drivers is pure injustice to the millions of Chennai people who suffer at their hands every day.
It is a known fact that the meters in Chennai Auto’s don’t work! Even if some work, they don’t operate by meters. 50% of the Autos are owned by Police personnel and the rest 50% by the goons backed by politicians so these assoles have nothing to worry about. If some passengers threaten to complaint, the auto driver laughs, even slaps the passenger for good measure and tells him to fuck off.
Even though officially the minimum fare is around 9 rupees (I think so), I can bet my ass if anyone in Chennai has paid that amount in his life to a auto driver.
They first start with 30, even if its just one kilometer and then settle down at 20 or 15. If it’s more than two kilometer, then nothing less than 25!
There is one more way these mommaeffers fleece more money. You are in T.Nagar and you want to go to Vadapalani. You strike a bargain of 60 rupees (By meter it should be 30) and as soon as you reach the Vadapalani border, the auto driver stops and even if you plead that you got to go just around the corner, he bargains for more as you did not tell him that it’s the other end of Vadapalani!! YES! I have no words to describe these scum called Chennai Auto drivers! If Pushkar is making a movie which actually shows them as decent guys, then I gotta say he lost his marbles and I suggest not to be influenced by just one-bike-breakdown-auto-travel incident. Give up your bike for a week and travel around in Chennai Auto’s and then think about making such a movie!!
Whenever I get into Mumbai’s Auto’s, I am thrilled and keep thanking god for such great auto drivers! They actually give you back one rupee change!!
I’m in Chennai. I agree with Machchar. But as a film, this should be interesting even if they show ‘em as humble and honorable guys.
admin note: comment edited. contains verbal abuse.
machchar, agree with you wholeheartedly 210%.. mumbai’s auto drivers are GOD compared to the ******* drivers in the south. the ones in nanganallur are especially notorious.. one of them actually had the nerve to ask me for 50Rs. to the pazhavanthangal station.. it’s a 10min drive!!!
superb venky….have seen the promos….damn interesting….esp the F-1 style Auto race…in the film….looking forward to it….:d
admin note: comment trolled. contains personal attack, verbal abusive.
When I read the title of this article, I thought that someone finally had the guts to show the true face of these eunuch drivers, but when I went on to read the whole article, I realized it’s just gimmicks on part of Pushkar and Gayatri to create a buzz for a project and they care a hoot for any real issues. [quote]But Pushkar and Gayatri don
I have a different opinion, please dont generalise anybody.There are majority auto drivers in chennai, who are cheaters, litmus test, speak language other than tamil..ur screwed big time.
well cinema is real..in a microscopic way,,but in exact sense its work of over exaggerated emotions and situations.
Bless autowallas of chennai…but dont make non-tamils feel,,that they r no mans land..