Vineeth Sreenivasan has banged his car more than 100 times—not on roads, but in parking lots of Chennai.
Vineeth explains the 'accidents', which he terms 'clearance calculation mistakes.'
Suppose there is a pole in the parking ground. Vineeth considers it to be far away. Similar to taking his cinemas close to the hearts of the audience, Vineeth reverses the car closer to the pole until the vehicle rams it.
Dents to the vehicle seldom worry Vineeth. He thanks god for keeping him safe and unhurt.
"I am not a good driver,” says Vineeth. Chennai is his heaven (swargarajyam) as Dubai is to Jacob.
Vineeth loves cruising in Chennai, dreaming. The dreams were later translated into movies.
His wife Divya knows of the dreams too. If she finds him laughing or crying while driving, she immediately hands over the mobile phone to him. And Vineeth records his thoughts, thus forming the outline of a script.
For Vineeth's father Sreenivasan, script is something written in haste. But for his son, thoughts that occur on crowded roads become scripts.
It is illegal to speak on the phone while at the wheels. Vineeth could be the only one in the world who uses the mobile to speak to self while driving!
Such thoughts that were recorded became dialogues, which Nivin Pauly and Renji Panicker delivered to loud applause.
Sometime ago, a Mercedes-Benz honked in Vineeth's dream, waking him up. When Divya enquired, Vineeth muttered: "Unniyettan.”
The dream gave shape to the character, Unniyettan, in Jacobinte Swargarajyam. Unniyettan was not in the initial script. Jacob, whose business had gone bust, hands over the ignition key to Jerry to sell off the car.
Their driver Unniyettan, however, wanted to take the car for a spin in Dubai one last time.
After the high-speed trip, he tells Nivin Pauly: "You floor the accelerator, but he is solid,” and walks away without looking back.
Unniyettan is a leaf Vineeth took from his family, which always had friends as drivers. When Vineeth and brother Dhyan lived in Thalasserry with their mother, one Sasi drove their vehicle.
Whenever Sreenivasan took the car and asked friends or relatives for directions, they used to ask him to hand over the phone to the driver.
"One of my friends is driving the car. You tell me the direction, and I will pass it on to him,” was Sreenivasan's usual refrain, which often left the person at the other end embarrassed.
Sreenivasan never uses the term driver. It's always friend or buddy. One Shinoj is driving the car now. "Don't use the term driver. For my parents, he's their third son after me and Dhyan,” says Vineeth.
"Doctor, I am not handsome. I am not tall either,” thus begins Sreenivasan's Vadakkunokki Yantram. The concept of hero underwent a change with the movie. The father-son duo is now changing the concept of a driver.
