Popular art director turns saint

National award-winning art director Thota Tharani has donned the greasepaint to play swami Chinmayananda, a renowned Hindu spiritual leader who inspired the formation of Chinmaya mission in upcoming English documentary “The Quest”. He has worked on several Tamil and Telugu films over the years. R.S Prasanna of Tamil comedy “Kalyana Samayal Saadam” fame has directed the film, which is currently in its post-production stage.

While Tharani plays the older version of the swamiji, Sandeep a real-life monk plays the younger version. The timeline of the film is from the time Chinmayananda was a kid till he became old. Sandeep will be on screen till the point swamiji was 40 years old and after Tharani comes in. All actors in the documentary are people who are members of the mission. Scheduled to release in August, “The Quest” is jointly produced by Prasanna and Chinmaya mission.

Apparently, Tharani said that he won’t act ever again even if he was given an opportunity. He did this particular role because it was for a spiritual reason and he basically wanted to help out a young team.