Media playing with Mani Ratnam

Ever since the news about Mani Ratnam planning to make Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan into a film hit the media, numerous speculations were traveling at vigorous pace regarding the cast and other technical members of the team. Everyone worth their salt are giving ideas to the ace filmmakers through different media how the established film maker should make his film.

At this juncture, came the news that Sathyaraj would be donning the role of a Buddhist monk in the film. Immediately, it was assumed that the monk is of Srilankan origin and criticisms were thrown against Sathyaraj that he was going against Tamil sentiments by agreeing to do a Sinhalese monk and that he was not a ‘suddha Thamizhan’. But what the media failed to understand was that Buddhism was much rampant in Tamil Nadu in the period that Ponniyin Selvan was set and there were many Buddhist monks in Tamil Nadu in that era as well. Hence Sathyaraj would only be a Tamil Buddhist monk and not a Sinhalese Buddhist monk as imagined by the media.