Starring Anand Deverakonda, Vaishnavi Chaitanya, and Viraj Ashwin in the lead, the coming-of-age love story is raking in the moolah at the box office.
Sai Rajesh. (sairazesh/ Instagram)
Director Sai Rajesh Neelam’s Baby is running across all centres with packed houses.
Everyone is wondering how could a writer pen such a heartwarming, heartfelt love story and who could have been the inspiration for this teenage-triangular love story.
Sai Rajesh revealed, “The pics of two boys and a girl — supposedly their girlfriend — from Tamil Nadu’s Salem went viral on WhatsApp in 2015. A gruesome attack resulted in the death of the girl which shook social media.”
While pondering over why the girl was killed, he subconsciously weaved a story in his mind. “That’s how Baby started. I knew that murdering the girl would send the wrong message to society. So, I changed the climax,” the director-writer explained.
A poster of Sai Rajesh’s ‘Baby’. (sairazesh/ Instagram)
Starring Anand Deverakonda, Vaishnavi Chaitanya, and Viraj Ashwin in the lead, the coming-of-age love story is raking raked in the moolah at the box office. Baby is drawing crowds, especially teens, to theatres since its release.
Sai Rajesh Neelam tried and tested several female artists in the industry for the role of Vaishnavi. “Most of them liked the story, but they didn’t like ‘those’ sequences. As many as 15 female artists backed out from it.”
That’s when he approached Vaishnavi through a manager. “Convincing her parents for the role was an arduous task. I even told them that I would not go beyond these frames,” he said.
Sai Rajesh with team ‘Baby’. (sairazesh/ Instagram)
When producer SKN (Sreenivas Kumar N) asked him to approach medium-scale heroes in the industry, the writer-director wanted to go for a big hero.
“I was about to narrate the story to one but voluntarily stepped back because I felt I had no strength that could match him. Later, another hero outrightly rejected the offer when the production team called him up. He said he wouldn’t even listen to the script, thanks to the impact of my previous flick Hrudaya Kaleyam (2014). I had a sleepless night brooding over the rejections.”
He felt that he has to break the adverse judgement that formed among the industry circles because of his previous films. And, Baby helped him break it.
Nevertheless, he asserted that it is tough to make/write a spoof comedy like Hrudaya Kaleyam. “In fact, it is easy to make films like Baby. But releasing a film like Hrudaya Kaleyam is challenging.”
A poster of ‘Colour Photo’. (sairazesh/ Instagram)
The major credit for the National Award-winning flick Colour Photo (2020), which was again penned by Sai Rajesh, went to its hero Suhas and director Sandeep Raj.
The film was raved over both by critics and audiences during the lockdown days after it was premiered on the OTT platform Aha.
“Although I wrote the story and produced it, people doubted my capability. That confusion prevailed for Baby, too.”
However, the industry is now heaping laurels on him.
“Director Sukumar called me to praise my work saying that Baby would influence him a lot. It gives the high when someone of that stature keeps us praising for our work,” the writer-director was all smiles.
Sai Rajesh Neelam believes that Vijay Bulganin’s music worked out big in Baby.
“Vijay Bulganin did four films. Unfortunately, all of them turned out to be duds at the box office. The re-recording of Saptagiri Express (2016) was underway in Chennai when Vijay posted a small music clip on his Facebook page. It sounded like the violin bit composed by Ilaiyaraaja garu,” he recalled.
“I kept suggesting to many producers to give Vijay Bulganin a chance but in vain. So, I decided to rope him in for Baby. There were no second thoughts and you now know why,” the filmmaker added.
Sampoornesh Babu in ‘Hrudaya Kaleyam’. (sairazesh/ Instagram)
Though Sai Rajesh is a senior in the craft, he worked out the script of Baby at the last minute.
Understanding the psychology of a teenage girl who just steps into college, how she reacts on entering into an exactly opposite world, and how an autorickshaw driver from a basti reacts after hearing about his girlfriend — all these need to be intricately written.
“I wrote a bound script for Hrudaya Kaleyam. Psychologies of cinema work differently. Even if I write a sequence and keep it aside, many confusions keep bothering me. So, I rewrite it in the morning on the sets,” he elucidated.
Sai Rajesh defines Neelam Baby as a zero-risk film. “Since I’ve produced three films earlier, I know where to minimise the cost. My producer was tension-free in these aspects,” he guffawed.
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