The moment I noticed the film festival advertisement in Behindwoods website, I reserved my ticket for Thalaimuraigal. I had already watched the movie, but I really wanted to watch the film again in the theater and this seemed to be my only chance.

At the venue, Behindwoods announced that they were kicking the film festival off with Thalaimuraigal, as a tribute to the late legend Balu Mahendra, which I felt was very thoughtful.

First of all, I really liked the idea of watching the movie in an open air theater (OAT), that too in a sprawling campus like IITM's.

The theater was packed in spite of the slight drizzle that hit the OAT throughout the movie.

The shower actually boosted the movie watching experience a great deal as there are scenes in Thalaimuraigal that portrays rain and thunder. The surround sound at IIT was so effective, that each time there was sound of thunder, I thought it was real.

I was excited to meet Sashikumar, Vinodhini, Rail Ravi and Master Karthik, the cast of Thalaimuraigal, during the interactive session.

The entire aura was filled with a lot of excitement with the audiences asking questions about Balu Mahendra and his style of working.

It is not often that you get to see actors talking about their experiences live and actor Sashikumar revealed that Balu Mahendra was all set to film another script and was planning to cast him in it. When he mentioned that the movie would have been at least thirty times better than Moondram Pirai if it had materialized, I realized we were going to miss many more masterpieces of the legend in the years to come.

Vishal Chandra
Public Relations Officer
Chennai