India must know kabaddi star Arjun Chakravarthy's story: Director Venu KC

Talking about how he came across Arjun's story, Venu tells IANS: "I have been a sportsman who participated at state level junior meet and at that point of time my coach used to tell a story about his coach to motivate us. That story inspired me to write a script. After several years I developed an interest in writing scripts. Ever since, I have written 25 scripts but none of them excited me as that coach's story. So, I decided to turn his story into a script." 

The filmmaker talks about the research that went into making the film. 

"I travelled to different places where the coach has spent most of his life. I met his friends and villagers, and gathered a lot of information about him. It was important for me to understand his character and the pain he went through for several years. I felt that this story needs to be told to all the Indians. This motivated me to convert that script into mainstream cinema," he says. 

He recalls there were shooting snags, too. 

"My team and I have spent over two years creating and capturing a realistic image on screen. We built realistic sets from 1960 to 1980s and after 20 day of shoot our set got collapsed due to heavy rain in Hyderabad. We had to build it from scratch again. So, this film is really close to my heart," shares Venu. 

The film stars debutants Vijaya Rama Raju and Sija Rose.