After doing extensive research on him and making a film on him, what do you say is Periyars relevance today?
The main reason why I decided to make a film on Periyar is because I feel he was and is misunderstood. The descriptions you gave — atheist, anti-Hindu, etc show how misunderstood he is. Unfortunately only this image has stuck. I am not saying he was not an atheist; he was. He was also against religious superstitions, caste, etc. One of the objectives of my films is to show the other facets of Periyar; in fact, he was a multi-faceted personality. He lived till he was 95, and the history of Tamil Nadu moves with him. I feel his philosophy and social reforms are more relevant today than earlier. His number one enemy was caste and today, we see only caste politics in Tamil Nadu. The greatness of Periyar was in his humanism. He studied only up to the 4th standard but he was an original thinker and that is why we are talking about Periyar today. He was not an ordinary politician. How many politicians of his time are remembered today? He is remembered even today because he is relevant even t
