Director Hasith Goli doesn’t remember being fond of stories or narrating them to his friends when he was young. He would read and listen but there was nothing serious about it. His father had a fetish for Telugu literature and so he got all the encouragement from him to read Telugu poetry; his father had a way with words and would engage and impress people with his gift of the gab. He was a civil engineer but a voracious reader and would write ‘samasya poornalu’. Recollecting the good old days and sharing it with Y.Sunita Chowdhary of Klapboardpost.com, Hasith says, “I would get incentives if I would reel something from Peddha Bala Siksha when I was young. Till the tenth standard I studied in Guntur, then the four years of engineering was at BITS, Pilani.
I worked for a mapping company for a year and a half and then at Snap Deal for a couple of years. Paralelly I was working for short films. During college, I sensed I had a creative urge but didn’t know how to channelise it. Vivek Atreya was working for short films for quite some time and we would collaborate, bounce ideas off each other. Once Mental Madhilo began, I knew where I was heading. Surprisingly, we had our small schedules and production division. We would execute it. MM was not a big film but since there was a friendly environment, we did think it was a big leap from what we did earlier. Vivek was prepared with script and execution. The short films really helped him fine tune his craft. He quit his job a year before and started pitching stories and I quit during Mental Madhilo. Even my craft began getting better.”
He shares, “The kind of ideas that we came with were contemporary, in sync with this generation. Post MM, I pitched a script to Vishnu, for some other reason it didn’t take off and I got busy with Brochevarevarura. It helped me well. Any experience never goes to waste. My academics more than the education per se, helped me get better as a person. I was thrown into a free world during my engineering days. I learned self discipline, built a huge network and developed leadership skills etc. How did the idea germinate? I was excited at the point where I decided to write something about a thief. What can I run around in his life is what I explored. There are many films on this point but I didn’t draw any comparisons. I’ve been witness to petty things in the house and I explored it. It started getting better as it developed.
Talking about Raja Raja Chora, Hasith wanted to narrate a story but not in a straightforward way. It definitely deals with sensitive humour and addresses everyone. Ask him if Sree Vshnu was an obvious choice to play the lead because he had worked with him earlier, he says, “I could understand Vishnu in a better way because of the films we worked in i.e in proximity. Personally, I like Vishnu when he erupts more on screen, he is fun and has a great sense of humour. Chora is a thief. RRC ..hail hail thief. We say that when we are glorifying. He and we are taking pride in his profession. Is he a Robinhood? No. The teaser? what else can happen in his life. He is a human too, just like you and me, he would have gone through certain things. In totality, he cannot be just a thief, he has their traits as well and that becomes relatable.”
Sunaina plays an important role like Ravi Babu and Ajay Ghosh. She has worked in a film called Tenth Class and did a lot of work in Tamil. She did a great job. Megha Aakash (a ‘soft ware’ lady), Sree Vishnu is a software guy according to her. “The treatment will take its own course, I don’t think I should be revealing much. At one point, you will start liking him, enjoying him more and there will be a gradual high. We worked within our own premises, we applied the grammar we knew. Any influence from Vivek? I dont deny, I learnt a lot of the craft from him, we worked a lot together. Vivek and I have been fans of Vivek Sagar for a long time, Vedaraman – the cameraman was with us from the short film’s time.” Given a choice, Hasith too would prefer a theatrical release and having said that, he compliments all those folks who released their films recently. It was a daring step. He signs off, “We too prefer that but we need to also see how safe it is.”
