Gulmohar to bloom soon

Director Jayaraj's Gulmohar in which scenarist-turned-director Ranjith is the debut hero, playing a college lecturer, is all set for release on August 28. The first choice of hero had been Suresh Gopi.

The movie will portray campus life, immediately after the Emergency which ended in 1977. Ranjith appears as an extremist college lecturer named Induchoodan in this film, which pans two different periods in the life of the protagonist.

Debutante Minu Mathew is the heroine; Lakshmi Gopalaswamy plays Induchoodan's wife. Also in the cast are Mukesh, T.G. Ravi, Siddique, Jayakrishnan, Kollam Thulasi, K.P.A.C. Lalitha, Shobha Mohan, Nishanth Sagar and Padmakumar.

The film is scripted by Didi Damodaran, daughter of well-known scenarist T. Damodaran. O.N.V. Kurup has penned the lyrics, which have been set to tune by noted music director Johnson. Cinematography is by M.J. Radhakrishnan; Manoj does the editing and Sujith Raghavan is in charge of art direction.

Produced by Saji Karuveli under the banner of Orient Films, Gulmohar is likely to be a venture that stands somewhere between an 'art' and a 'commercial' movie, like many of Jayaraj's earlier movies.