Kalyan Varma: I am proud of Wild Tamil Nadu much more than Wild Karnataka | Interview

Kalyan Varma, India’s most celebrated wildlife filmmaker and photographer, continues to redefine how people see nature’s untamed spirit with his Wild series. After the success of Wild Karnataka, he is back with the latest documentary, Wild Tamil Nadu, a breathtaking journey, highlighting the state’s diverse ecosystems, ranging from mist-covered hills to sun-drenched green forests and marine life and even India's only red desert, capturing the raw pulse of life in every frame.

Kalyan Varma in conversation about Wild Tamil Nadu

Talking about blending storytelling and science, Varma sat down with LiveMint for an interview and delved into his creative vision, experiences behind the lens, and what Wild Tamil Nadu truly means to him.

Wild Tamil Nadu is part of Sundram Fasteners Ltd's CSR project. It is made by Nature InFocus, with the support of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department.

Walking us through the shooting process, Varma shared, “We shot for over 4 years. The first 1 or 2 years, we were just shooting. Later, we went back and forth to see which stories were shaping up, which ones deserved more investment, and which we could step back from. We had to balance these stories across the Western Ghats, from deserts to oceans. We wanted to balance them across behaviour and species.

Pulicat Lake has 300+ species of birds; it's fascinating. We filmed for over five years. On the last day of our shoot, we got the rare scene where cormorant birds formed a single line.”

Wild Tamil Nadu makes history

Wild Tamil Nadu became the first documented video to capture the rare movement of Cormorant birds moving in a single line, or echelons, to capture fish from the lake.

Varma added, “We didn’t see it happening before. I saw it from the ground. We had drones to capture it. We saw it first and were like, 'What is going on?' It's only understood when you change the perspective to the top.”

Wild Tamil Nadu was screened in Chennai on 16 October. Actor Arvind Swamy lent his voice for the English version of the documentary. Ricky Kej helmed the music, blending Indian elements with the sounds of nature.

Wild Tamil Nadu trailer

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Challenges of filming Wild Tamil Nadu

While filming a documentary comes with many challenges, Varma shared that his biggest one was the COVID-19-induced lockdown in India.

“We lost a lot of time due to the COVID lockdown. The first two years were completely under lockdown. But the real and larger problem was balancing the stories. When we did the first cut of our documentary, it was 2.5 hours long. Nobody is going to watch a documentary that long; it's not Kantara or Jawan. The hardest part was losing stories because if we showed 15 stories, we actually had 50 stories. We had to let go of others because we wanted to keep it under an hour. That’s the saddest part.”

Kalyan Varma relied on public feedback to pick stories for his documentary, avoiding bias.

Not just Varma but his team of 10 videographers also deserve credit for bringing out the unseen stories across the state. While the team consisted of nine male videographers, we only saw one female.

Varma expressed his regret. “It's not fantastic. In other projects, we had more women's representation. We are aware of it. Unfortunately, a lot of our women videographers were not available during the shoot.”

The documentary will soon be released in the Tamil language. It will be screened at public schools across the state.

Wild Tamil Nadu vs Wild Karnataka

When asked to compare Wild Karnataka with Wild Tamil Nadu, Kalyan Varma picked his side. “Wild Karnataka was way easier; Tamil Nadu was difficult. We got in the criticism for Wild Karnataka is that we didn't show any people, as if there were no people in the state. This time, we showed animals in the people landscape and people in the wild landscape. Every documentary is a learning experience. I am prouder of Wild Tamil Nadu much more than Karnataka.”