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Chennai techie murder: Was it a case of love gone wrong?

In a disturbing incident, 26-year-old Vetrimaran lured his friend R Nandhini, employed as a techie, to a lonely spot, tied her up, slashed her many times and burnt her alive in a suburb of Chennai. The cops say the accused was obsessed with the victim and acted out when she refused his advances

Love can be deadly. Even as people celebrated Christmas and are enjoying the festive season, here’s a horrific tale of a woman techie being chained, slashed and then burnt alive by her former classmate in a southern suburb of Chennai.

The police has arrested 26-year-old Vetrimaran alias Pandi Maheswari, who underwent a sex change operation for the unthinkable torture and murder of R Nandhini. They have revealed that the crime stems from the fact that the accused seemed to be over-possessive.

Here’s what we know of the case – believed to be a love story gone awry.

Murder most foul

On Saturday (24 December), 26-year-old Vetrimaran alias Pandi Maheswari under the pretext of throwing Nandhini a surprise birthday party, lured her to a lonely place in Ponmar in Thalambur police limits and blindfolded her.

According to the police, the transsexual man then chained Nandhini’s hands and feet as a “surprise,” slashed her neck and wrists, emptied a can of petrol and torched her before fleeing from the spot.

Gowtham Goyal, DCP Pallikaranai said, “Around 7:00 to 7:15 pm, he took her to a vacant plot near Ponmar Road. As per the preliminary investigation, he would have blindfolded her under the pretext of presenting a gift. After that, he chained her arms and legs before cutting her wrists and ankles. After that, he poured kerosene on her and left her immolating.”

Investigations reveal that Nandhini and Vetrimaran were old friends and, in fact, studied together while they were back in Madurai. The police investigation states that Nandhini chose to remain friends with Vetrimaran even after Vetrimaran underwent a sex-change operation. Both of them were employed by a private IT firm in Thoraipakkam, which led to a further intertwining of their lives.

Authorities believe that the murder arises from Vetrimaran’s obsession with Nandhini. Vetrimaran, it is believed, had begun arguing with Nandhini if he saw her talking to other men.

Reports state that on 23 December, Vetrimaran called up Nandhini to say that he would not quarrel with her and asked her to meet him as he planned “a surprise” for her birthday. Nandhini agreed to meet Vetrimaran, not knowing what would come next.

The police have revealed that the crime was well-planned and he had plotted the murder for a week.

The incident came to light after locals noticed smoke coming from an old building near Ponmar near Thalambur in Chennai around 7.30 pm on Saturday. When the locals saw smoke emanating from the vacant plot, they went closer to investigate and found a woman lying unconscious with her hands and feet tied and her body burnt with petrol. And even though they immediately rushed into action, calling the ambulance, she succumbed to her wounds in the hospital.

Notably, when Nandhini was rushed to the hospital, she was able to utter a phone number and when officials dialed it, Vetrimaran answered the call and said he was her friend. A police official said, “He came to the spot and helped the police take her to the hospital. It was only later during interrogation that he confessed to his crime.”

The authorities further added that Vetrimaran displayed no signs of remorse for the act he had perpetrated. In fact, in his statement to the police, he said that he was upset over Nandhini refusing to be in a relationship with him. Vetrimaran had gone through a sex-change process at a private hospital a few years back, however Nandhini told him that they had no future together.

Old friends

Nandhini and Vetrimaran’s friendship went way back. They were friends in Madurai since Class I.

After school, Vetrimaran began identifying as a man, owing to which many people cut off contact with him, but not Nandhini. Nandhini’s family reveal that she did not want to hurt her friend and chose to remain in touch with him.

Amudha, Nandhini’s elder sister was quoted as telling the DTNext , “Whenever Vetrimaran would visit Madurai, he would visit our home. I’ve often fed him with my own hands.”

In 2019, Vetrimaran underwent a sex-change operation and left Madurai. Around eight months ago, Nandhini, a BSc graduate in information technology, had got a job in Chennai and had moved to the metro where she and Vetrimaran worked together.

Nandhini’s family, who is grief-stricken by the entire incident, said they couldn’t believe that Vetrimaran had perpetrated such a crime. Nandhini’s father told DTNext , “My daughter had continued the friendship with Vetrimaran on a humanitarian basis. We, as a family, did not have any problem with that.”

He also said, “If Nandhini had told us there was a problem here, we would have definitely helped her in sorting it out. Being empathetic and supportive cost my daughter’s life.”

The accused, Vetrimaran, is now in judicial custody and has been charged with murder. In the meantime, the police also released Nandhini’s body to her family on Sunday. Nandhini’s family is inconsolable. One of them was even quoted as saying, “We saw her burnt body with hands and legs being chained. Is that a way to die? It’s difficult to come to terms with the way her life ended in such a cruel way.”

With inputs from agencies

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Why Vetrimaaran is the most interesting director in Tamil films today

Vetrimaaran is arguably among the most interesting filmmaker working in the tamil film industry. here’s documenting his rise and what it takes to be a talent like him..

His production house’s name, Grass Root Film Company, is a clear pointer to Vetrimaaran’s worldview. This Deepavali’s biggest release in Tamil Nadu is, arguably, Kodi (Flag), a political thriller he has produced that stars Dhanush in his first double role, as twin brothers. The twins may be identical but their natures are mutually exclusive. Refreshingly, Kodi casts Trisha as a feisty woman politico, giving Dhanush’s eponymous hero a run for his money.

“For a hero movie, it’s pretty decently written,” pronounces Baradwaj Rangan, film critic and associate editor at The Hindu. “There’s a conflict, there are surprises and even within a commercial film, it’s properly written and directed. It’s not some random moments strung together to get people whistling.”

The film’s premise is how politics and political interests shape communities and the quality of their life. In this case, it involves skullduggery surrounding a factory emitting toxic effluents. It could be happening not too far away from our backyards.

At the Oscars

Vetrimaaran himself, however, was conspicuous by his absence during Kodi’s promos. He has a bigger task on hand. Visaaranai (Interrogation), the part-docudrama, part-crime thriller he directed, is India’s official entry to the 89th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. So he is in the US persuading jurors take note of his film, which has some truly hairy torture scenes. The last Tamil film that made it to the Oscars was 16 years back: Hey Ram starring Kamal Haasan.

Usually, the choice of any film to represent the country at the Oscars polarises critics, but Visaaranai remains largely unchallenged. Rangan agrees. “Visaaranai was a fantastic film.”

It tells the story of innocent migrant labourers picked up and tortured by the police to extract a false confession for a fatal robbery at an influential man’s house. How the film, shot in 42 days on a Rs 2-crore budget and eventually wining three National Film Awards, got made is interesting. After his Aadukalam in 2011, Vetrimaaran had busied himself with his production ventures, Udhayam NH4, Poriyaalan and Kaaka Muttai. When he was prepared to shoot his next, the script he picked was Soodhadi, a story on gambling, proposing Dhanush in the lead role. However, the actor had to take time off to work in Balki’s Shamitabh, being shot in Mumbai.

Vetrimaaran was mooting a book adaptation when director Balu Mahendra’s assistant serendipitously presented him with Lock Up, a riveting, partly autobiographical book written by M Chandrakumar, a former autorickshaw driver. The book, which took five years to write and another four to publish, narrates his harrowing experience while in jail in (then) Andhra Pradesh.

“When I pitched the story to Dhanush, who later produced the film, I said I can only guarantee you a three-day weekend run at the box office. But it’s a low-budget venture; you’ll get your investment back,” Vetrimaaran laughs. “Dhanush was amused, but agreed to fund the project. [I thought] it’s the kind of film that would not bring in repeat audiences. I was proved wrong and it got a good three-week run.”

The author, Chandrakumar, was incarcerated for a fortnight way back in 1983. “Yet his experiences are relevant even today,” points out Vetrimaaran. “Visaaranai reflects a stark reality from which you cannot shut yourself out: that is its success. It was challenging to find the right kind of actors and locations. We employed real stuntmen who could exercise restraint while beating up the actors.”

“What was unique was that there were a lot of first-time actors in the film; that added rawness to it,” says K Hariharan, filmmaker and critic. “Actors like Samuthirakkani and Kishore were entirely on the sidelines. That made it an interesting watch.”

Astutely, the team decided to send it to international film fests right away, confident it would work with foreign audiences. Visaaranai premiered at the Orrizonti section of the 72nd Venice Film Festival, a first for a Tamil film, and won the Amnesty International Italia Award. Crucially, the European audience was exposed to a hitherto unexplored form of Tamil cinema that dealt with grim reality in a non-dramatic but powerful way.

“Europeans have a different policing system. They found my narrative a bit harsh, though they were moved,” explains Vetrimaaran.

A rooted voice

It is Vetrimaaran’s preoccupation with sometimes gritty, sometimes heartwarming reality that makes this 41-year-old one of the best filmmakers of our times.

“The best thing about the regional filmmakers is that they bring in a very ‘native’ feel,” says Rangan. “Like if I watch Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat for instance, I find [elements] that remind me of Vetrimaaran. But that’s more because these filmmakers do these ‘rooted’ things very well. They give you the sense of the atmosphere, the rhythms of life in that particular environment, they take care to bring them alive.”

His critically acclaimed debut venture, Polladhavan (Ruthless Man) in 2007, followed a lower middle-class young man’s search for his stolen bike, an exercise that takes him through the seamy underworld. Four years later came Aadukalam (Arena), a Pongal release that raked in six National Film Awards. The cockfight arena was where love, ego, honour, friendship and betrayal were played out in the rustic backdrop of Madurai.

Says Manimaran, long-time friend and assistant, “Vetri used to like watching cockfights in the neighbourhood in our hometown. So he thought we could develop a story around them.”

There was no doubt about who would play the lead. “I wrote Aadukalam keeping Dhanush in mind,” says Vetrimaaran. “As an actor, he delivers exactly what I need and sometimes more. As a producer, he offers me complete freedom and does not interfere at all. He trusts me completely.”

Rangan explains the Vetrimaaran touch, “There is a world of difference in the way he uses the song and dance elements in Polladhavan and Aadukalam. They have become more organic and rooted; they’re not fantasy elements.”

“I personally prefer Aadukalam to Visaaranai, but it’s like comparing apples and oranges,” says Hariharan. “Aadukalam had a certain kind of warmth and spontaneity. Visaaranai, to me, looked rather staged.”

He explains, “Visaaranai’s [appeal across the world] is that for the first time in Tamil cinema, you see this kind of brute reality without the director taking recourse to a love story or family drama. It’s also interesting that a country like India allowed such a strongly critical film on the system. There’s no doubt that Vetrimaaran is a bold filmmaker.”

Vetrimaaran’s productive chemistry with Dhanush has paid rich dividends. The two went on to produce Kaaka Muttai (Crow’s Egg) in 2015, a subversive film poking fun at what is regarded as cool - pizzas, in this case. This little gem, premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, tracks two brothers from a Chennai slum dying to taste a pizza. Directed by M Manikandan with wit, not once is the children’s dignity compromised. Their family struggles in a heartless and corrupt city and soon we find ourselves cheering for our little heroes. Kaaka Muttai pocketed two National Film Awards.

“There is a stamp of quality that people have begun to associate with Vetrimaaran, because even the films he produces are pretty decent,” says Rangan, adding that he looks for, and gets, that certain quality.

Vetrimaaran’s genius lies in shining a light on people we would not even glance at in our rat race. His films show us that ordinary people often lead extraordinary lives if only we stop to talk to them.

Smitten by cinema

Born in Cuddalore near Puducherry and raised in Ranipet, a suburban town in Vellore district, two and a half hours from Chennai, Vetrimaaran was smitten by cinema even as a child. His mother, a writer, ran a school in the area, while his father was a veterinarian. Friends remember him as a film buff who watched every movie that came to town.

“He would bunk classes and watch them, each three or four times. Then he would come to the school ground where we used to hang out until 7:30 in the evening and would retell the whole story to us. My friends and I have actually walked out of the theatre at times because the film was nowhere as good as his narration. He still has that quality,” says Manimaran, his assistant.

Vetrimaaran was in his second year of Masters in English Literature in 1999 when the now-deceased filmmaker Balu Mahendra was invited to judge a short film contest at the Loyola College, Chennai. Shortly afterwards, he attended a seminar conducted by the director and was inspired enough to assist him in Julie Ganapathy, Athu Oru Kanaa Kaalam and the television series Kadhai Neram.

Athu Oru Kanaa Kaalam cemented his friendship with the lead actor, Dhanush, whom he describes as his best friend. While still assisting Balu Mahendra, Vetrimaaran pitched the story of Desiya Nedunchalai, and the actor readily agreed to play the lead.

Recalls Manimaran, “Producers were not hard to come by because we had Dhanush. But a few had misgivings about how Vetri would handle the project as a newcomer. So we tossed aside that script, which I later made into Udhayam NH4.”

The initial years proved to be rough. “I was pitching different scripts to different people for three years and it was the sixth producer who okayed Polladhavan,” says Vetrimaaran on his directorial debut.

Adds Manimaran, who assisted him in the project, “After the film was edited, we were really scared to show it to the producer. We kept stalling the screening telling him it may not have come out as he expected. Finally, when he saw it, he was satisfied. We were relieved and gradually grew confident.”

Pushing for excellence

When Manimaran himself forayed into direction with Udhayam NH4 in 2013, Vetrimaaran returned the favour by stepping in as producer under his banner, Grass Root Film Company. As he puts it, “I want my production house to be a platform for good, interesting ideas. I can find a producer for my films, but others, who may be first-time filmmakers, might have innovative scripts that mainstream producers might not understand. Like Kaaka Muttai for instance.

“I produce films in partnership as I may not be able to afford the entire budget. Dhanush ends up co-producing some of them as our tastes are similar. None of my producers ever ask me for the budget. I always make sure it is within their means and I can give the desired returns.”

For someone who has been successful both commercially as critically, Vetrimaaran has directed only three films in nine years. “For me, every film is a learning process. After each, I take time to unlearn. Then I find new content, learn it completely and then execute it.”

Manimaran describes his working process thus, “Many directors make changes to the script on the spot. But Vetrimaaran is different because he pays attention to detail. He puts in a lot of effort, so there may be last-minute adjustments with lighting and locations. Unlike working with other directors, you need to be available 24 hours.”

Outside of work, the father of two, who met his wife Aarthi while at college, likes to race pigeons, pretty much like the characters he portrays. His rootedness has also led him to voice the germ of an idea: setting up an organic farm eventually.

Rangan describes grit as the definitive quality of Vetrimaaran’s films, and praises his skill in animating the atmosphere in terms of the integrity of the characters, the plot, and the texture. “The way he shapes the characters and writes them, you feel that these are not [just] individual people; you get a sense of where they come from, where they belong. [They’re] not just some random characters floating around.”

His fans are already talking about his fourth film, Vada Chennai (North Chennai), an ambitious gangster trilogy he has been planning since 2003. After undergoing several changes of scripts and stars, Dhanush, Vijay Sethupathi, Amala Paul and Samuthirakkani are among those confirmed on the project that is currently under way. Slated for release next year, Vada Chennai is also bound to have the by-now classic Vetrimaaran stamp.

(Published in arrangement with GRIST Media.)

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To Sir, with love

Neatly framed, the National Award for best director monopolises one part of the room in celebrated director Balu Mahendra’s film school. A closer look reveals that the award belongs to his most famous ward, director Bala for the movie 'Naan Kadavul'!

Such is the respect and admiration for the guru. The guru-shishya tradition with regard to filmmaking in Kollywood is well and thriving, with the legacy being passed down from one director to another.

With five national awards and a plethora of other awards to his name, Balu is no ordinary guru. To give him credit, his disciples too have proved worthy of him, winning awards by the dozen. One such disciple is Bala.

But a true guru does not discriminate between his disciples.

Says Balu: “It’s true that Bala was my student but there are others too who have made a mark, like poet-lyricists Arivumathi, Na. Muthukumar and Suha, whose first film 'Padithurai' is soon to be released and of course, Vetrimaran.”

But just as a father cannot resist from talking about his much-loved son, Balu reveals that Bala was smuggled into his unit by Arivumathi and began by working as a production assistant. Noticing his industrious nature, Balu quizzed him as to who he was and soon began to train him and with his very first effort 'Sethu', Bala proved that the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Director Vetrimaran, who is riding the crest of success with his movies 'Polladhavan' and 'Aadukalam' (the latter won him the national award for best director) had adopted Balu as his father. “Just a few months after I joined Balu, my father passed away and that lacuna in my life was filled up by Balu,” recalls Vetrimaran.

It was Bala who spurred Vetrimaran to acquaint himself with modern Tamil literature as he felt that was the key in producing good cinema.

Director Ram, who directed the critically acclaimed 'Kattradhu Tamil', became a student of this ‘gurukul’ by default. “I wanted Balu sir to handle the cinematography for my film but it got shelved for some reason. However, by then I had started visiting Balu’s film school every day, picking up the finer aspects of filmmaking in the process. In fact, Balu feels that 'Kattradhu Tamil' was a film that mirrored his style—perhaps a greater compliment Ram could not have received!

Adhering to the guru-shishya tradition, Bala helped nurture the career of Ameer Sultan, who kept his guru’s faith with meaningful films like 'Mounam Pesiyadhe', 'Raam' and the blockbuster 'Paruthiveeran', which put Tamil cinema on the world map.

Sasikumar, another young Turk, worked as an assistant to both Bala and Ameer, carefully observing them at work. 'Subramaniapuram', in which Sasi acted and directed, was just the tonic for starving Tamil audiences. Now, Sasikumar is helping his assistant Prabhu direct a still untitled movie.

Talk about Balu’s legacy and one can’t help but mention the tale of the viewfinder which has become part of Tamil cinema folklore. Subrata Mitra, Satyajit Ray’s cinematographer handed over a viewfinder to Balu in recognition of his talent. When Bala made 'Sethu', Balu was so impressed that he handed the same viewfinder to his pupil. Bala, in turn, handed it over to Ameer when he saw 'Paruthiveeran'. It appears as though this viewfinder is tracing a new path for Tamil cinema.

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Sensational Tamil director Vetrimaran has turned another year older today and on this occasion, the makers of his flick Viduthalai have come up with an interesting update.

The makers have officially announced that Viduthalai, featuring Soori and Vijay Sethupathi, will be made in two parts. The high-budget movie will be released soon in theaters.

Udhyanidhi Stalin of Red Giant Movies has officially announced that he will be presenting the movie. Produced by RS Infotainment and Grassroot Film Company, the movie has Bhavani Sre, Prakash Raj, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Rajeev Menon and Chethan in prominent roles. Ilaiyaraaja is the composer for this flick.

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