‘i nearly passed out when veterans complimented my work’: kishkindha kaandam writer bahul

All Bahul had in mind when he began writing, he said, was the character of a peculiar old man and how the rest of the story should explain the peculiarities. That’s Vijayaraghavan’s

character, one of the most appreciated in recent years, not least for the actor’s gripping performance. You take him – Appu Pillai – for granted when he makes his appearance in a grand old

house tucked into the thick of a forest -- grumpy, irritable, and least inclined to talk. He doesn't so much as cast a glance toward his new daughter-in-law (Aparna) who steps into the

house with his son (Asif), bewildered but easily soothed. Grumpy old men are a sort of norm, you don’t wonder about them, until their strangeness becomes too noticeable. Or like Aparna

wonders, if the strangeness could have caused more trouble than you’d imagined. And that forms the core of this carefully knitted thriller. “Thriller has always been my favourite genre.

Whatever storyline I think of, it will be on those lines. But I didn't want another police story, another serial killer investigation, not the trope of CBI and forensics. I wanted a

thriller without a villain, or in other words, a thriller without negative intentions,” Bahul said. He does allow forest officials into the picture though. Asif is employed as one, Ashokan –

playing another key character – too. Forests simply seeped into the picture as the chapters proceeded, he said. Even the monkeys that became so crucial to the story that the title became a

reference to them, showed up only in chapter 6. “I was writing a scene where Aparna steps out into the woods outside the house with a cup of black tea and takes a selfie, only to notice

something strange hanging behind her in the picture. That’s when I stopped to wonder what could be so strange that should surprise her, it couldn't be something as natural in a forest

as a pretty flower or a hive of bees. It had to be something unusual and I thought of a radio hanging down a tall branch. And what could take a radio that high – monkeys,” Bahul explained,

sharing the thrills of creating worlds out of blank paper.