Take? No, it’s a mistake!

Actress Ramya accuses Tamil director
K S Adhiyaman of holding back her money; filmmaker vows never to work with her again
Kavvya Christopher and
S Suresh Kumar

Film director K S Adhiyaman has urged his fraternity to boycott actress Ramya after all the trouble she is said to have caused him during the filming of Thoondil.
At a recent press conference in Tamil Nadu, he announced that he would never again work with the actress because she spelt trouble.
Coming from Adhiyaman, who has directed stars like Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Maduri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai, such fierce statements are quite something. He has never made derogatory remarks about his colleagues till date.
On the other hand, Ramya too insists that signing on Thoondil has been her biggest career mistake. “I do not want to be part of a production unit that does not know how to treat its star cast,” she fumed.
Story so far
The film Thoondil stars Shyam and Ramya in lead roles. A large part of the film has been shot in London, which is where all the action took place.
The shooting for Thoondil began eight months ago and Ramya was put up at a house in London. Since the film was being shot on a shoestring budget, most of the crew were put up at home stays.
According to Ramya, the owner of the house where she was put up used to get drunk every evening. She also said that she had given some of her expensive white clothes to the laundry, and they all came back blue.
“I insisted on moving into a hotel. The sets were far from comfortable. No food was provided for the cast and the crew. I had to go out and buy my own food,” alleged the actress.
Missing laptop
The cast and the crew travelled to Thailand in May for the last schedule of the shooting. Ramya said, while checking in at the Chennai airport, she had over her luggage, including a laptop bag, to the production manager.
“After some time I asked him for my laptop. He said he had already sent it in with someone. But when we reached Thailand, the bag was still missing. The production in-charge said someone had checked it in with the luggage, but I knew they were lying. The bag had my new Apple Mac laptop, my sunglasses worth 20,000, my ipod and mobile phone chargers,” said Ramya.
“Ramya insisted that she would resume shooting only after she was compensated for the loss of the laptop bag. Despite assurances that we would pay her, Ramya was uncooperative,” said Adhiyaman.
“They did not pay me the entire money. So we came to a deal. I told them to give me $500 everyday, failing which I wouldn’t work on that day. They paid up for two days, but the third day, we had an accident on the sets. Shyam’s assistant, a young boy, almost drowned and he was admitted to hospital. I did not want to ask them for my money when there was a crisis. Later, I got to know that it was Shyam who was paying the boy’s hospital bills, so I decided to ask for my money. They promised to pay me the next day, but wrapped up the shoot on the same day without paying me a single dollar. The director and producer of Thoondil owe me $1250. They did not pay my hotel bills and they did not even pay for my transport either,” fumed Ramya.
Right now, the actress and the director are at loggerheads. Whether the box office fate of Thoondil will bring a thaw in the frosty equation remains to be seen.