“Is it really thirteen years? Seems like just the other day when we were shooting for it. How time flies?” sighs R Madhavan about Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots, which was released on this day 13 years ago.
Maddy who had an extremely fulfilling 2022 with his Nambi Narayanan bio-pic Rocketry: The Nambi Effect doing very well, recalls shooting 3 Idiots with an injured knee. “During the entire shooting I was wearing a protection bandage. Just days before the shooting was to start I got torn a ligament while playing badminton with Prakash Padukone. Luckily for me, Raju Hirani didn’t drop me. Instead he wrote the injured knee and protection bandage into the script.”
Incidentally the inspiration to play badminton to stay fit—they were playing college students at 40-plus—came to Maddy from Aamir whom he is full of praise for. “It was a pleasure working with Aamir. Such a healthy atmosphere during the shooting, we never knew when the shooting started and when it ended.”
Looking back at the experience Maddy says, “By God’s grace I’ve had a charmed life so far. My career in both Tamil and Hindi went the way I wanted to. In 2022, another one of my dreams came true when I was able to finally complete and release Rocketry. It was a project I nurtured for ten years. To finally see it to fruition, and to get so much love for it was a dream come true.”
On the home-front too, Maddy couldn’t hope for more. “My wife Sarita is my guiding light. Our son Vedant is doing our country proud with his swimming medals.”
After Rocketry would Madhavan be directing any more films? “Not at all! I had no choice but to direct Rocketry. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. But working with masters like Mani Ratnam and Rajkumar Hirani must have helped.
Kuch toh seekha hoga.”
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