A young man who struggled to make a living by working as an insurance agent, medical representative and even tried his luck in mushroom cultivation is now basking in glory and even planning to make two more movies to help his two associates. The 25-year-old Sunil Kumar N is hogging the spotlight in Sandalwood after the success of Simple Aag Ondh Love Story.
Sunil, who struggled to get an opportunity as a director, had already rejected offers from Tamil and Telugu film industries to direct the same flick. He is now all set to produce Bazaar and Ulidavaru Kandante to launch his associates Rakshit Shetty and Harish as directors.
Sunil, a BSc Biotechnology graduate from KLE College, recounts his hard journey to success as a fabulous one. Since he was a child, Sunil was interested in drama, street plays and was a voracious reader. The craze for films brought him to the Kannada film industry, where he started his career as a writer and an assistant. Soon, he landed in a debt trap.
“I did not tell my family members about my adventures in the film industry. To pay back the loans, I worked as a medical representative and an insurance agent. I also tried cultivating mushrooms. However, it only made my situation worse,” he recalls.
Sunil took these setbacks as challenges and planned to make a movie all by himself. He took loan of Rs30 lakh from his cousin.
“I calculated that in case of total loss, I will pledge my house or sell a portion of the land we owned,” he explains. Sunil used to sell greens cultivated on his family land everyday in Bangalore.
“Before I came to college, I sold greens in the market almost every day in the morning,” he says. And then it all happened.
“Simple Aag... was planned keeping the youth, especially techies and working couples, in mind. The dialogues, which proved to be the trump card of the movie came out from my own experience, creativity and re-phrasing of popular proverbs,” he says.
About his future plans, Sunil says: “Everyone is expecting dialogue-oriented movies from me now and so, I will surprise everyone by churning out a completely different film soon.”
@ashimysore
