Noted cinematographer Vijay Milton is a happy man these days. He is trying his hand at direction after a gap of seven years. His film is titled 'Goli Soda' and it is about four adolescent boys whose life revolves around the Koyambedu wholesale vegetable and fruit market in Chennai, the largest of its kind in Asia. “Actually, I took the idea from my own life. When I was 14, I was playing cricket with my friends when a speeding car hit against our stumps. I got annoyed and yelled at its occupants. The car stopped, and to our shock, five burly men who looked rough got down and asked who had shouted at them. We got so scared that we hid behind the trees, typical of our age. Had one of us spoken or resisted, what could have happened — that is the core theme of Goli Soda,” says Milton.
“I was passing through Koyambedu Market early one morning when I witnessed hundreds of young boys sleeping in its attics. That triggered off a curiosity in me, and I started doing research on them. I learnt that their world revolved only around the market, they had no identity beyond it. Keeping this as a base, and adding my own imagination, I made GS,” he says.
Having finalised the script, Milton narrated it to award-winning director Pandiraj, who had made a film, Pasanga, with street kids. It was he who helped him identify the four boys for the lead characters, namely Sree Raam, Kishore, Pandi and Murugesh, who had acted in Pasanga and who are grownup boys now.
“Pandiraj sir helped me get those boys on board besides penning the dialogues for GS,” he says. Milton also gave them one month’s rigorous training at the Koyambedu Market. The boys were made to sleep and bathe there and do the daily chores of a coolie there.
GS also has its quota of fun and romance. “There is a girls’ school near Koyambedu Market. I noticed that these boys would wake up only at 3 pm which was when their day would start, and they would go and stand on the bridge and watch the girls who came out of the school, like road Romeos. I have added a bit of that in GS. There’s also a character, ATM, played by newcomer Seetha, which adds the fun element and is the spine of the film.”
Now that Lingusamy and Bose have lapped up the film, Goli Soda, which got a clean U certificate from the censors, has reached a different level, he says. “I am confident that it will boost the film to greater heights,” he says. The film, whose songs are by Arunagiri and RR with music by Kannada biggie, Seelin, is expected to hit cinema halls on January 24.
