She didn’t know what to do after losing my father, who was the sole breadwinner.”Īs their family’s debts grew, Vinothraj moved to work in the garment factories of Tripura district. “All my brothers and sisters dropped out of school and went for jobs,” he says. He recalls picking up vegetables like carrots from shops and running away to give them to his mother. His family of six siblings and their mother lived in a village in Madurai. “That money was huge for me,” says Vinothraj. As a child labourer, he earned ₹40 a day. This was his earliest influence on the world of cinema. As an 11-year-old boy, he started working as a coolie, working in a flower market at the famous Meenakshi Amman temple in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai district where film shooting is a common norm.

(HT Photo)Īfter his father died, Vinothraj dropped out of class five and became a child labourer to support his family. A still from the Tamil Oscar-nominated movie Koozhangal (Pebbles), directed by PS Vinothraj. The 32-year-old has known and channelised the pain and human redemption in his film-making, as the Oscar-nominated film borrows from the life of his sister, a victim of marital abuse. The journey of Tamil film Koozhangal (Pebbles), India’s entry to this year’s Oscars, is shaped by the struggles of director P S Vinothraj.

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