Reporting by Niveda Manohar; Photographs by Sriram Narasimhan
We enter the Uyire Uyire press meet, and run into an unusual sense of calm. There’s no buzz of journalists’ chatter, no PROs running around, no workmen erecting banners. A few minutes later, Jayaprada walks in with and her nephew and lead actor of the film, Siddhu. The mayhem begins. Photographers gather, incessant flashing ensues. All that jazz. Soon, Hansika Motwani arrives in a black dress, looking pretty as usual. She’s whisked around groups of camerapersons, who all want ‘quick bytes’ from the actress before the official press meet begins. She obliges. Then vanishes with Jayaprada in tow.
Meanwhile, we spot Anup Rubens. Not many have noticed he’s there. He’s the composer for Ishq, the 2012 Telugu film which Uyire Uyire is a remake of. We talk to him about Uyire Uyire‘s music. He tells us about how Jayaprada, the producer, jokingly asked him to test her voice for a song. And it was so good, that she ended up singing ‘Listen to my heart’ for the film. Anup sings a few lines from the song for us.
Meanwhile, that missing buzz has returned with gusto. Meaning, Hansika is back in the hall. She has changed her costume to something more casual. Director AR Rajasekar says his only condition for agreeing to work on the film was that Hansika should be cast as the heroine. The producers asked him why, and he replied: Oru Kal Oru Kannadi and Maan Karate. The barrage of heaping praises on each other begins. Jayaprada says that though her roots are Telugu, she wanted her nephew Siddhu to debut in Tamil because the language is special to her. She then joins Anup Rubens for an impromptu performance of ‘Listen to my heart’, despite her ‘bad throat’.
