Maaya Nathi

1.Darkness

Imagine ~Ashwin kumar as Siddharth~

It was a late evening. The sun was getting ready to sleep, covered in his cosy sea blanket. The shore of Kanyakumari was slowly being silent except the deserted area with an old building where the famous director GVK's film's climax was getting filmed.
[Imagine the top view of the sea shore, slowly focusing to the crowded film shooting spot and then the director GVK]
The Director yelled "ask someone to clean that wall fast, the artist will arrive soon". [The frame is a dusty surface or just imagine a blank screen, just the voice is heard]. People belonging to the crew speaks to each other about who will do and someone comes forward
[Just footsteps heard, the blank screen continues].
A voice says "as usual Sidharth dhana panran?" (As usual, is it Sidharth cleaning?)

Another voice says mockingly "it's been 5 years since Sidharth started following his passion of film making but still he hasn't been able to do a single project alone, I feel pity on him". [A cloth appears on the screen, the cloth slowly moves clearing the dust on the screen. An incredibly expressive eyes appears when the cloth moves, he slightly moves backwards making his entire face visible]

Thoughts of the countless number of rejections he faced all these years floods up his head and it reflects on his eyes. He finishes his cleaning work and isolates himself as usual. [He moves away from the crowd and stands near the beach, alone] His thoughts were getting darker and depression dominated them.

After a few hours someone came and called him back to the shooting spot, [He walks back to the crowd and stands in front of the wall] he adored the beautiful painting of a phoenix in the wall. He wonders how beautiful looks, which wall which was dusty a few hours ago. Painting the eye of the bird still remains. Crew members asks him to set up the lights. While doing that, he accidentally spills the paint that was kept beside the wall. Some of it splashes on the painting. Entire crew gets angry on him and asks him to go away. [He walks again to the beach] He regrets about not being careful enough, he couldn't accept the fact that he was the reason for the shoot's delay.

Few minutes later, one of the crew member comes near him and consoles him. He informs that GVK sir is calling Sidharth. He mentally gets prepared to meet the director. He expects GVK would be angry and would shout at him. To the contrary, GVK smiles widely and says "intha painting la etho missing ah irukku nnu yosichutirunthen... Ippo paaru perfect aah irukk" (I was thinking that something is missing in this painting... now just look at it, it seems perfect) he said pointing at the artwork.[He slowly shifts his gaze from GVK to the wall and an inspirational background music plays] Sidharth was surprised to see the paint that he spilled was transformed as fire from which the phoenix is rising! After that he gets back into work and climax shoot happens.

As the director was very impressed by the artist, he planned to shoot one more scene with another wall art. GVK informed Sidharth about this and tells him to settle the payment of the artist by 3 am as the painting process will get over only by then.

It's 3am. Moonlight ruling the clear sky is being admired by the waves of the beach. Sidharth reaches the location and calmly enjoys the beauty of the surrounding. He looks around for the artist but finds no one, he calls out "anybody there". [He roams around searching the person and stops when he hears a voice, he looks in the direction of that voice] He hears a little kid's sweet voice telling "inga iruken anna". Sidharth's eyes widen in shock.

~Chap1 ends here~