We are all sojourners on this journey called life, whose destination is death. Some, however, are on the fast lane to this destination. Paper Rocket, the new seven-episode series on Zee5, tells the story of six such people who want to commit suicide. The series stars Kalidas Jayaram in the lead as Jeeva, one of the six youngsters. The others include Ilakya (Tanya Ravichandran) who is in therapy for her anger issues; Valliamma (K. Renuka), who has stage 4 cancer; and Charu (Gouri Kishan), who is paralysed after an accident in a swimming pool. The story follows the six as they go on a trip of self-discovery in a van named saavu vandi (death vehicle). The journey ultimately proves to them that this life, painful as it may be, is not worth giving up. The series handles grief with a deft touch, neither sentimentalising it, nor shearing it of its gravity. Pleasure and pain in Paper Rocket lend poignancy to each other, and themes like sexual harassment are treated sensitively. Coming at the time of a pandemic, when the only certain thing about life seems to be its uncertainty, it is no wonder that the series touched a chord with the viewers.
“I never imagined such a huge response from the audience,” says Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi, who wrote and directed the series. She is thrilled that so many people could relate with the emotions of the characters. Kiruthiga is as unpretentious as the small office in T. Nagar where I meet her. Her answers are spontaneous and impulsive. “I don’t think much of box office or commercial success,” she says. “I just want to make the kind of films I want.” Paper Rocket is her OTT debut, and the story is a patchwork quilt of incidents from her own life and from those of people around her.
Kiruthiga had the script in mind even before the existence of OTT. But she had to keep it aside, as there was no platform for telling long format stories then. “I had one line for each episode,” she says. “But when Zee5 agreed to hear my story, I came up with the script. I was looking for the right producer who would not want me to make changes in the script just for the sake of commercial success.” Paper Rocket’s script is the quickest one she has written, says Kiruthiga. She had clarity of thought and purpose, and was sure about how she wanted her characters to be portrayed on screen.
Kiruthiga’s tryst with cinema began almost a decade ago with her first project—Vanakkam Chennai (2013)—starring Mirchi Shiva and Priya Anand in the lead. A few years later, her next, Kaali (2018), starring Vijay Antony, released. But both the films bombed at the box office. Ask her what she learnt from her failures and she replies with a chuckle, “I don’t know if I have learnt anything.” She says she has never written anything out of fear of failure. “I have never stuck to a formula, because the audience did not demand that,” she says. “I just want to make films of my own kind.” Whether her scripts click or backfire, she lets neither success nor failure affect her. “I follow my instinct,” she says.
Kiruthiga has never trained as a filmmaker nor worked under any popular director. As a result, she has not had it easy. She did at least two show reels for Vanakkam Chennai. The first one was rejected, even by Red Giant, the production company owned by her husband, Udhayanidhi Stalin. So she did another show reel with a different cast, which finally impressed the production team.
Hailing from an affluent and politically powerful family, Kiruthiga’s passion for writing and story-telling got her into cinema. Before and after Vanakkam Chennai, she kept pitching scripts to producers. A post-graduate in mass communication, Kiruthiga was into story-telling right from her college days. She worked as a freelance copywriter and even ran a fashion magazine called INBOX 1305 before becoming a filmmaker. She grew up in a progressive family which always gave her the freedom to pursue her passion. “I could have chosen another career path, gotten into business or done something else that would have made my life a little easier,” says Kiruthiga. “But I chose my passion. I always stick to what I enjoy thoroughly.” She wrote her first script just before her elder son was born. And she did Kaali when her daughter was six months old.
Ask her what kind of inspiration M. Karunanidhi (her husband’s grandfather) has been to her as a scriptwriter, and she says, “Of course I have watched his movies and read his scripts. He is inspirational. But cinema has definitely changed. Those were the days when ideology played a major role and cinema was just a medium.” As for her, cinema and politics are poles apart, and never the twain shall meet. “I have stayed away from politics, though it is there at home,” she says. “I have always been myself and have never let anyone at home influence me.” Her feet might be dipped in the politics at home, but her head is far above in the clouds of cinema.