Yours Truly,

I have an open question. Have you ever had the experience of living a story you read in your childhood…. something which you can’t forget for this life time…? I’m sure we all have not just one but quite a lot. There is one such cute story I read in Reader’s Digest sometime in my childhood that still makes me feel excited. The day it came, the date, the title, the author….everything just faded away from my mind…except for the key concept. I read it in my 5th or 6th standard. I don’t remember when and where I got this book from, but sure it was an old copy of Reader’s Digest with more chances of it to be my uncle’s who used to be a lecturer in English. I’m touched by the story since then and had visualized umpteen times in mind.

The idea of making it a short film came to mind hardly two months back, while working. Quickly I shared it with some good friends around and they all joined me in fulfilling this thought. I must thank my colleagues Tintin and Venki for their support first. I was supposed to shoot the film with Tintin but on the location because of some vital constraints as I suggested, Tintin without any hesitation, passed the role to Venki who came with him just to help us out in the shoot. Veni, my friend from MCC was a special surprise for me coz I never thought that she would accept my idea of making her the leading lady of the film. And she just took it as her own responsibility, so I hardly had any trouble in getting the right dialogues and expressions from her.

Two learning experiences from Joebin:

1. The best learning experience for me in the film was Joebin himself, the 6th standard student in the film. He is my friend Deepu’s cousin. I was in the impression that it would be really tough to make kids act and he just proved me wrong. I explained him the story and dialogue only once on the location. After that I was busy explaining Veni about her expressions. In between, Joebin came and ask, “Arun Chetta, what is the dialogue after this?” We all got astonished when he said that he was trying to by heart the dialogues till then. He was in the impression that like in a drama he has to continuously deliver the dialogues. And guess what I never had to tell him, “Boy, now you have to do this”, at any point of the shoot.

2. Joebin who taught me this again. In my planned film, he was not supposed to smile anywhere. And if you now see the film the last smiling shot of Joebin is his creation. You believe or not, even though I had seen the film n number of times this particular shot is sure to bring a smile.

While the presents of my colleague Tintin was a positive energy while shooting the first scene, it was Raita who took that task in the shoot of sec scene. Whether it’s while talking to her or being with her I am happy and confident. Coz as she herself says she has one BIG mouth, that can’t be kept shut…What you say Raita? Guess I must take you to all my shoots. So that I feel free of any tension, laugh a little extra and may be live one extra day or week…

I want to write a few lines about Antony, but revealing his roll in the film may as well take the suspense of the film. So let me just leave it with “thanks……..”. Also my hearty thanks to Anbu and Vadivel for helping with the right location and equipments.

Only two of my films kept me happy from the first day of ideation till its completion, though the excitement levels are always high any film. One is “In Search Peace” and the second is “Yours Truly”. “In Search of peace”, was the visualization of a dream I had. So doing that film was an experience of dreaming again. And “yours truly” made me revisit my childhood.

And a million thanks to the writer of the story who remained successful in keeping his story live in my mind from the time I read it. I have not taken anything else form the real story accept the key concept of it. And the screenplay is made totally different by cutting down all the other characters coming in the story and by making film really crisp with only two scenes and two meetings at two different point of time….showing the intimacy of the two characters and that single promise…