Mohan Raja: Mithran was stronger, craftier, wilier than Siddharth Abhimanyu in Thani Oruvan

“Heroism in our cinema is usually of two types: Active, where the hero questions something wrong that happens around him, and Reactive, where he reacts to a wrong done to him. I don’t know if it has been done in Indian cinema before, but we came up with the idea of a ‘Proactive’ hero in Thani Oruvan.”

The Madras they don’t tell you about

“When this city was created, it was a land of opportunity for those desperate to escape oppression and seek a new life,” he says. “Who do you think created all these landmarks: Central station, Binny Mills, the post offices… everything that we today value as heritage? But have we truly repaid them for these sacrifices, or have we simply relegated them to a corner we barely pay heed to?”