Let us come to the subject, Mani Ratnam’s has been sage to the Bollywood film industry whenever the sun goes dark over the ‘Mumbai’s’ skies he came to rescue with Madras Talkies. His previous work ‘Bombay’ Roja, Dil Se and Guru has left unfading impression of class and caliber of this South Indian director, screenwriter and producer who conquered ‘Bollywood’ even having a weak understanding of the Hindi language. Yet again, he is ready to tell a story of good and bad – it resembles to Ramayana – which is part of all mythologies and our daily life. In all of us live a good and a bad guy and Raavan sketches the bad guy in the protagonist. The news is abuzz that like ‘Rajneeti’ that was inspired by ‘The Godfather and Mahabharata’ – although it was a kind shake – Raavan do take its inspiration from ‘Ramayana’.

However Mani declines it and said, “Raavan is not a take on Ramayan. Raavan is a story that is set in today’s times. Abhishek is playing the character of Beera. You and I could have shades of the character of Beera. You can look at the character from any perspective and feel that there is something new in it. What is it that makes a villain; my story is about a villain. In fact the Telugu version of Raavan has been titled Villain whereas the Tamil version has been titled Raavanan”.

You need to wait for 18th June when you could make your own view whether the protagonist is a Sage or Satan in the film – it depends on your thinking.