Yesterday passed in a Deepavali shoot for Vijay TV. A show called Nayakan with actor Vijay in a village called Kammavaanpaettai. About 15 kms or so from Vellore, this village is famous for one thing. Almost all the men in the village are in the Army. Every family boasts of sending at least 2-4 men to fight for the nation and the children seem to naturally choose to go to the Army. It was a lot of fun but there was enough physical strain as well. As soon as Vijay stepped into the village the team from the channel could only look helplessly as we were also shoved and pushed around and as our producer quipped "I have now become security guard in the name of a show producer"
There is one special thing that awed me as long as channels and producers and directors are concerned ....They are the ones who get on the field, dirty their hands and lose all sleep and food and water to present a programme to the best of their ability and all of them are big names as long as the media is concerned.
And I also saw that no matter how many schedules and run-orders were made as to what will happen at what time after Vijay comes in, the villagers became the directors after he actually did.
Vijay was generally quiet and when I did ask him about the endless pushing shoving and he also ended up with enough scratches, "I am used to it... and I love it". The way he said "I love it" the conviction and the pride was palpable.
Generally a good day.