Nag Ashwin Opens Up on Writing Kalki and His Love for Khaleja

Nag Ashwin, the man who minted big revenue at the box office with Prabhas’ Kalki 2898 AD is known to be the most simple and humble human being. Starting his career as Sekhar Kammula’s associate, he went on to debut with Yevade Subrahmanyam. Later, he gained a pan-India attention with Mahanati. Now, he emerged as the successful pan-India filmmaker with Kalki part 1.

Nag Ashwin recently interacted with some college students at an event, where he opened up about the making of Kalki, his thought process and life in general. During the interaction, he also shared that he wished he was the editor on Khaleja.

When Nag Ashwin was asked if there is one film that he thinks could have directed. The director gave it a thought and said, “I always wished that it would be cool if I was the editor on Khaleja, and may be Dear Comrade.” Earlier also, Nag Ashwin revealed that Khaleja is his favourite film. Unfortunately, both Khaleja and Dear Comrade failed at the box office but later gained a hit talk.

Talking about the effort that went into the making of Kalki, Nag Ashwin said, “If you want to expand Kalki into a zig zag puzzle mode and solve it, every scene has months and years of effort and planning that went into it. The writing is the core and the film did so well because of it.”

Also, many at times, the filmmakers complain that they too had a similar idea when someone else cracks it. Sharing his experience with it, Nag Ashwin said, “It happens with everyone. We write something and after a couple of months, we see one more film coming up with a similar concept. Around 2008, I was writing about memories and I wrote something similar to Inception.”

Very recently, Nag Ashwin’s video went viral on social media, where he was seen driving Maruthi 800 which was used in Jathi Rathnalu. When a student asked how is it possible for him to get on a ride in Maruthi 800, he said, “There is nothing as such. I have the car and it has the charge. Someone from the other vehicle captured me on a video. That’s all.”

At the same time, sharing his view on the future of AI in cinema, Nag Ashwin said, “When we worked on Kalki, there were some AI tools already available. But now, it is a different ball game. Already, people are making trailers with AI. But the point is that it still needs a mind to give a direction.”