Southern Spice: Lakshmy Ramakrishnan is destiny’s child

However her quest to learn and her self-efficacy to experiment with new challenges took her on different paths in life. If she found the designer within herself while managing a boutique in Chennai, then the entrepreneur in her rose to the fore during a sojourn in Muscat, where she managed a popular summer camp. Still nothing prepared the actress within, who took baby steps with the Malayalam film, ‘Chakkara Muthu’ in 2001.

‘Aarohanam,’ meaning “crescendo”, marks Ramakrishnan’s directorial debut and is produced by Monkey Creative Labs, managed by her eldest daughter, Sharadha.

“This story is about a 17-year-old boy, who finds one day on returning home from school that his mother is missing. His sister’s wedding is scheduled to happen ten days later,” said Ramakrishnan.

“So the brother-sister duo goes in search of their mother. The story concerns a specific mental disorder, but at the time of writing the script I was not aware that such a disorder existed.”

Viji Chandrasekar plays the mother in the film, which introduces newcomers Viresh and Jai Guheni.

“Aarohanam is a small experiment,” adds this mother of three girls. “Aarohanam has a soul, it will touch viewers. This is an entertainer with a positive note and not a dark film.”

Other supporting actors include Uma Padmanabhan, Sampath and Jayaprakash.

“For this film, I wrote 45 different screenplays before choosing the best among them,” says Lakshmy.

She learnt the ropes as a director, she says while working with Mysskin, Gautham Menon, Arivazhagan and Vijay.

Talking of Mysskin, she says: “I observed his working style and you can see that style reflected in ‘Aarohanam.’ I am grateful to my directors for patiently answering my questions on the sets.”

Confident

“So, I opted out of the project. ‘Aarohanam’ has been a learning curve. I am confident of doing that film now.”

‘Aarohanam,’ she believes, will make people look differently at mentally challenged people.