25 years on, it still sends a shiver down my spine: AMR Ramesh
BENGALURU: Award winning film maker AMR Ramesh is all set to launch his second movie on the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, following up on his successful 2006 film 'Cyanide' with the explosive 'Asphota' which is set for a formal big-ticket launch in the city on Wednesday.
The central narrative of Asphota, which has been made in four languages - Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi - is the hunt for Mr. Gandhi's assassins, with shots of the only surviving assassin Nalini meeting Mr. Gandhi's daughter Priyanka at Vellore jail. But for the director of the movie, it is a deeply personal journey.
Ramesh, who still breaks out in a cold sweat when he recalls the chilling night when the news of the May 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi broke, was a student at the Chennai Film and Television Institute in Chennai at the time.
As news of Rajiv's assassination spread like wildfire, Madras as it was then known, and the entire state of Tamil Nadu ground to a standstill, he said.
"A chill ran down my spine and I could not settle down to sleep. Unforgettable! It's still fresh in my mind to this day, almost 25 years to the day," he said.
While the movie is a bare-boned narrative that closely follows the investigation by former top cop D.R. Kaarthikeyan, which finally laid the blame for the suicide bombing at the door of the Sri Lankan separatist group, the LTTE, Ramesh tells Deccan Chronicle a story that he has rarely shared outside his immediate circle.
"I was studying in Chennai those days. On hearing that Rajiv Gandhi had been killed, I was restless. Then, along with my friend Kamalnath got on my bike and drove out. It was dangerous. There were fires blazing across the city and small demonstrations and stone-throwing had started," he recalled.
2nd movie to mark 25th anniversary of Rajiv’s death
He headed for the city's general hospital where at 4 am, the bodies of the dead and injured had been brought for treatment. The hospital was cordoned off, a ring of police guarding all entry and exit points.
"I was bent on getting in, and flashed a newly issued driving license, claimed I was from the media and they let me in," he said. "I wanted to know what happened first hand, I wanted to help," he says.
Purely by chance, he met the lady sub-inspector, who, it would later come to light had pushed the suicide bomber Dhanu away from the VIP area. It was another matter that security was so lax, that Dhanu, weighed down with explosives still managed to make her way back in.
Injured, from standing so close to the bomb, the woman SI asked Ramesh to find and tell her husband where she was. Curiously, one of his close friends would stay for years in jail for aiding and abetting Rajiv’s assassins - Ranganath was his neighbour Mridula’s husband, and gave the assassins shelter in Konanakunte, just outside Bengaluru, where they were all found, dead on the morning of August 20, ironically on Rajiv Gandhi's birthday.
Mridula who blew the whistle on her husband was Ramesh's neighbour, and her brothers, members of the Youth Congress, his friends. He had attended Mridula's wedding, danced in church. Photos of him at the wedding would see the police interrogate him.
Ramesh's movie Asphota is certain to breathe new life into the many controversies surrounding the death of India's youngest prime minister, of which so little is still known. Beyond the obvious.
