THE MASTER WHO REMAINS A STUDENT

Filmmaker Mani Ratnam opens up in a candid conversation with Gautham Vasudev Menon, reflecting on his creative process, and his enduring humility in the face of a celebrated four-decade career

- SUDHIR SRINIVASAN

THERE'S a searing, almost unnerving honesty that emerges when Mani Ratnam speaks about his craft—a disarming candor that lays bare his inner workings. He is an original, a man either oblivious to the mythic pedestal on which he's placed or deliberately dismissive of it.

Early in his conversation with filmmaker Gautham Vasudev Menon at the 55th International Film Festival of India, this becomes strikingly clear. "I thought I'd make one film and become a master," he confesses, this man so widely considered a master of cinema. "But it has never felt like that. It's still like the first film every time."