When ‘Sabdham’ director Arivazhagan’s honesty got rewarded in school!

Arivazhagan, a gold medallist at the Film Institute who has consistently been delivering superhits in Tamil, on Wednesday released the trailer of his upcoming horror thriller, Sabdham, featuring actors Aadhi and Lakshmi Menon in the lead.

Chennai: Pointing out that he has always remained truthful to his audiences, director Arivazhagan, who is one of Tamil cinema’s most successful directors, has said that it is his honesty that has helped him move up and reach the place he has today.

Arivazhagan, a gold medallist at the Film Institute who has consistently been delivering superhits in Tamil, on Wednesday released the trailer of his upcoming horror thriller, Sabdham, featuring actors Aadhi and Lakshmi Menon in the lead.

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The film, which has music by one of India‘s top music directors Thaman and cinematography by Arun Bathmanabhan, has been produced by 7G Siva.

Speaking on the occasion of the film’s trailer release, Arivazhagan said that he had always remained truthful to his audiences and recalled an incident from school when he was rewarded for his honesty.

Arivazhagan said, “When I was in my sixth standard in school, I had to take a Geography exam. I found the subject tough. At that point, the pass mark was 40. I was unsure if I would pass or fail the exam. Fear overcame me and I wrote answers to all the questions I knew answers to. Once I came out of the examination hall, I realised that I had answered six questions out of seven, while students were to answer only five out of seven.

“I realised that if the invigilator chose to cut down the answer to the sixth question, realising I had answered one more question than I had to, I would fail. When I got the answer script, I hurriedly checked to see if I had passed. I had. I had scored 40 marks and just passed. When I checked the answer script further, I realised that they had awarded marks to the sixth question also. I had got three marks for it,” said Arivazhagan, adding that he had no hesitation in taking his answer script back to his teacher to point out the extra marks.

“I pointed out that I had answered one extra question and that I shouldn’t have got marks for it. The teacher, realising his mistake, cut down those three marks. He turned to the front page, made my total marks as 37 marks. However, he wrote, “Plus three marks for honesty,” taking my total to 40 marks. That honesty is what makes me work till today,” the director said to loud cheers from the audience who had gathered to watch his film’s trailer.

The film, which has triggered huge expectations, features Aadhi as a paranormal investigator and Lakshmi Menon as a first-year resident doctor.

While his first film ‘Eeram’ had spirits using water as the medium to accomplish their mission, ‘Sabdham’ will have sound playing that role.

Sabdham will only be the second time that he is repeating a genre. The film has music by Thaman, who happens to be one of Arivazhagan’s close friends and the Telugu industry’s top music directors.

Apart from Aadhi and Lakshmi Menon, the film will also feature Simran, Laila, Redin Kingsley, MS Baskar and ace director Rajiv Menon in pivotal roles