Maniratnam's Debut Movie Was Pallavi Anupallavi in Kannada

Maverick director Maniratnam turns a year older today. While fans from around the world are greeting the talented filmmaker on his special day, we thought we could share an unknown trivia about him.

Maniratnam is known as a Kollywood filmmaker. Even though he has directed several multilingual movies, his movies are primarily in Tamil. However, did you know that Mani made his debut with a Sandalwood movie? No. We are not Kidding the movie titled Pallavi Anupallavi also featured Hindi actor Anil Kapoor and Julie Lakshmi in the lead roles. Mani wanted to cast Kamal Haasan in the lead somehow the role went to Anil.

Maniratnam we hear looked up to Guru Dutt for inspiration. The Kollywood director had apparently met three directors Bharathiraaja, K Balachander and Mahendran with a script before he made his debut movie.

He roped in the help of cinematographer Balu Mahender to get Ilaiyaraaja to do the music for his debut Kannada movie Pallavi Anupallavi. As a result, the movie was a blockbuster so were the songs.

Interestingly, his wife Suhasini had rejected 3 offers from Maniratnam to act in his movies. So that's about the famous director. Do you have anything to add? Feel free to comment.

Here's wishing Maniratnam a very happy birthday.