Dhanush recalls how his siblings and he had to work as children to afford idlis

Actor and director Dhanush whose next film is ‘Idli Kadai’  recalls he used to collect flowers so that he could afford idlis as a child. The actor was speaking during the audio launch of his next directorial project ‘Idli Kadai’ in Chennai. The actor explained how the idea to make a film around the 'Idli Kadai' (Idli shop) had occurred to him in the first place.

Dhanush said, "I had gone abroad along with Shreyas and Ashwath for a meeting. After the meeting, they went out while I returned to my room. I was alone in my room. Like everybody else, when I am alone, I have Ilaiyaraaja's songs for company. I was listening to an Ilaiyaraaja song called, 'Naan erikaarai...'. Some songs have the power to transport you to a different time and place. They tend to rekindle old memories."

"This song reminded me of a time when my mom would take me to her native village for my summer vacation. This happened when I was eight years old. We would stay there for around two to two-and-a-half months. This song transported me to that time and my grandmom's place in that village. It was a small village. Only two buses would come and go. There was one shop and it was an idli shop. I wanted to eat at that shop. However, I would not have money."

The actor then went on to explain what his siblings and he did to earn money. "In our village, if we plucked flowers from the fields and gave the owners, we would be paid according to the amount of flowers we had collected. So, my two sisters and cousins and I would wake up at four in the morning and go to the fields to pluck flowers. We would work non-stop for around two-and-a-half hours.

If we worked that hard, each kid would get around Rs two or Rs two and 50 paisa. We kids would then go to a field and have a bath at the water tank there. Drying ourselves, we would go to this Idli shop and have four to five idlis. Today, I have eaten in famous, and restaurants. But I have never been able to get the same happiness, the taste, the peace we got when we ate those idlis bought with hard earned money," he explained.

For the unaware, Dawn Pictures, which is one of the production houses producing the film, had initially announced that the film would hit screens worldwide on April 10 this year. However, they chose to postpone the release to October 1.