Mani Ratnam to revisit Uyire Uyire from Arvind Swamy & Manisha Koirala’s Bombay as part of Kerala tourism

Ponniyin Selvan director Mani Ratnam was approached as part of Kerala’s initiative to promote tourism

A still from Bombay and (R) Mani Ratnam

Kerala has a special connection with legendary filmmaker Mani Ratnam. Though the director has only helmed one Malayalam film, Unaru, and that too almost four decades ago, most of his movies including Raavan, Dil Se and Bombay have always had portions shot in Kerala.

While he chose Thekkady and Munnar to film portions for the song in Dil Se, the filmmaker opted for the picturesque locations at Athirapilly for his movies Guru and Ravan. The director was recently approached by the Kerala Tourism Minister Muhammed Riyas as part of the State initiative to promote cine tourism.

This included a request, inviting the Ponniyin Selvan director and his team to Bekal Fort, where they had shot the song Uyire Uyire from the Arvind Swamy and Manisha Koirala-starrer Bombay back almost 30 years ago.

In a video shared by a media channel, the director accepted the invite and promised to return to Bekal to revisit those memories. “It will be a pleasure and honour to come back to Bekal. Kerala has got too many fantastic locations and Bekal is something very special. We will be very honoured and I will try and see as many people from the unit to see whether we can come back and remember the days we shot there,” said the director to the minister.

The filmmaker’s past two visits to Kerala have been to promote his magnum opus – Ponniyin Selvan: I and II – both of which got a massive response in the State. The presence of fan favourites such as Vikram, Karthi and Trisha along with Malayalam stars such as Aishwarya Lekshmi, Jayaram, Babu Antony and Lal also helped the cause.

Incidentally, Jayaram in a previous interview with OTTplay had said that the team had also planned to shoot Ponniyin Selvan in Kerala but these were waylaid due to the pandemic. The lockdown then forced the team to change locations.

Share