Vaathi director Venky Atluri clarifies on his controversial comment on reservation, says his intention was education reaches everyone

The director of Dhanush's next Venky Atluri had been in the eye of the storm ever since he made a controversial comment on reservation. During the promotions of his film starring Dhanush, a journalist had asked Venky about a crucial change that he would bring about, if he were to become the Union Education Minister of the country. Atluri replied to her saying that he would end caste-based reservation. He added reservation should be based on economic factors and not caste. The actor received a lot of flak for being ignorant on why caste-based reservation was brought into education in the first place. And that too at a time when news reports about Dalit students being discriminated against at premiere institutions have been surfacing time and again.

Clarifying about the same after the success meet of the film held in Chennai recently, Venky Atluri said, "I don't know about the Tamil Nadu scenario. When you are trying to answer a point, there will be a lot of filtering in my own words. My intention is that education reaches everyone, and this includes students from families in the below poverty line. What I meant to say was that if an able person below poverty line is unable to avail reservation, please consider."

Vaathi marks Venky Atluri's debut in Tamil and Dhanush's debut in Telugu. The film is a bilingual (Sir in Telugu) and marks Venky's maiden collaboration with Dhanush.  Dhanush plays a teacher in the film, who takes on the corrupt educational practices in the system and tries to make education accessible to all in the film. 

The film stars Dhanush, Samyuktha, Samuthirakani, Tanikella Bharani, Aadukalam Naren, Sha Ra, Hareesh Peradi and P Sai Kumar. Cinematography is by J Yuvaraj, editing by Naveen Nooli and music is by GV Prakash Kumar. The film has been bankrolled by Sithara Entertainments and Fortune Four Cinemas and Srikara Studios.