Gatta Kusthi 2 turns 50, and Chella Ayyavu has a shelf waiting for the shield

Chella Ayyavu already knows where the shield is going. Years ago, as an assistant director, he was handed a memento when one of his films worked, and he kept it at home with a photograph beside it. On Thursday he stood on a stage collecting a second one, this time as the director of Gatta Kusthi 2, and told the room it would sit next to the first. “That is why this moment is so special and so emotional for me.” The dates helped. The film’s pooja was on September 2 last year; the 50th-day celebration fell on September 3 this year. “For a film to start, release within the year and cross 50 days in theatres, in the current climate, is a big thing.”

The occasion itself was the point. Fifty-day, hundred-day and 175-day celebrations used to be a fixture of the newspaper ad pages, and everyone who spoke had a version of the same observation: they have all but disappeared. Ishari K Ganesh of Vels Film International put it bluntly. A film that lasts a week now gets counted as a hit, so a 50th-day function is something he had almost given up expecting to host. Kushmitha Ganesh added that her father decided on the day the film opened that if it got this far, every actor and technician would be called up and honoured together, which is what the shields on the table were for. The film released on July 3, went to streaming on July 31, and by her account has stayed inside India’s top ten there since.

Vishnuu Vishal produced the film with Vels and was the one who had promised Ganesh a 50th-day party if the film earned it. His thank-yous were mostly specific. Ramya Krishnan, he said, was told at the outset the part was a fifteen-minute special appearance, and she said yes out of affection before reading the scenes; the reception her character got is one of the things he is happiest about. Zara, the child at the centre of the film, he called its lifeline. And then he turned to the guest sitting to his side. “Prabhu Deva sir has occupied the biggest place in my heart since I was a boy. I danced to Chikku Bukku at competitions and won. At one point all I wanted was to be a dancer. A leg injury ended that, but he was my childhood role model.” Prabhu Deva had landed in Chennai that morning after a run of shows in the United States and Canada and came straight from the airport, because Ganesh had called him while he was abroad and he had said he would turn up whenever asked.

Prabhu Deva returned the warmth in his own direction. He counted himself among the people invested in Vishnuu’s wellbeing, said the actor gives every film the same 200 per cent he gave this one, and declared himself a fan of Vishnuu’s wife, Jwala Gutta, “a world-class badminton player.” On the film he made the industry point: making a sequel that also works is one of the harder tricks going, and Chella Ayyavu pulled it off. He had known Kushmitha since she was small and was glad to see her running the company’s next generation. Minister Rajmohan, who has worked with Prabhu Deva, described a man who sits quietly on set, reads or plays chess between shots rather than picking up a phone, and becomes the character the moment the camera turns on. He also had a line for the audience’s habits. “Today it is a challenge to run five days, even five shows in a day. Fifty days is a crown for this team.”

Aishwarya Lekshmi kept coming back to Keerthy. However many films she makes, she said, the love that character has brought her will stay special, and she thanked Chella Ayyavu for casting her in the first film and Kushmitha for being the kind of ally on the production side a woman actor does not always get. Mokksha, who plays Meenakshi, has a different problem. People now call her Meenakshi to her face, and since the streaming release the recognition has spread beyond Tamil viewers. “I do not actually have long hair like Meenakshi. Convincing people I am Mokksha is the challenge now.” Zara thanked her parents, her director and producers, and her co-stars, Mokksha and Aishwarya among them, for making the set feel like home. Ramya Krishnan, back at a success function after a long gap, credited Ganesh with a Midas touch and Chella Ayyavu with a script whose humour comes built in rather than bolted on.

The third film came up three times without anyone announcing it. Yogi Babu, who has worked with Chella Ayyavu since Silukkuvarpatti Singam, said he had assumed Gatta Kusthi would end at two, until the director planted a closing line designed to leave the door ajar. Ramya Krishnan signed off with “see you in Gatta Kusthi 3.” Vishnuu, praising Chella Ayyavu as the one director he has had a genuinely long run with, and as one of a shrinking number who can still get families into a theatre, told him to make the next one soon. Chella Ayyavu, for his part, gave the credit for this one to Vishnuu’s involvement at every stage from writing to promotion, and to Aishwarya Lekshmi as the face that made Gatta Kusthi a brand. Two months ago the thank-yous were a BMW and a set of SUV keys. This time it was a shield, and the director seemed to prefer it.