Rajiv Menon

Rajiv Menon (born 20 April 1963) is an Indian filmmaker who has worked as a director and cinematographer in several Indian regional film industries. After making his breakthrough as a film cinematographer with Mani Ratnam's drama Bombay (1994), Menon has continued to collaborate with Ratnam on other projects including Guru (2007) and Kadal (2013). He has also directed 2 critically acclaimed Tamil films, Minsara Kanavu (1997) and Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000), winning a Filmfare Award for the latter. After a sabbatical, Menon returned to directing with Sarvam Thaala Mayam. Away from films, Menon is a leading Indian advertising director, and runs Rajiv Menon Productions and Mindscreen Film Institute, which supplies equipment for documentaries, advertising films and cinemas. Early life Rajiv Menon was born in Cochin, Kerala into a Malayalam-speaking family. As a result of his father's occupation as a naval officer, Menon regularly had the chance to live across different parts of India at a very young age. His mother is the noted playback singer Kalyani Menon, while his brother currently serves as an officer in the Indian Railways. As a result of his travels as a youth, Menon rarely had exposure to television apart from group screenings of war films such as The Guns of Navarone (1961) at the naval base. Once his family moved to Visakhapatnam, he became increasingly interested in cinema, and was impressed by a mixture of Hindi and Malayalam films such as Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962), Chemmeen (1965), Nirmalyam (1973), Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973). Menon later moved to Madras aged fifteen and spent his formative years in the city. The death of his father during the period meant that Menon was left with little guidance during and did not want to take up a job which would put him in a "rat race". He was gifted a spare camera by his neighbour Desikan, a photo journalist with The Hindu, with the move igniting an interest for Menon in cinematography. After gaining admission into the Madras Film Institute, he began to explore filmmaking as a nuance and became a keen follower of the work of Bengali directors such as Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen, and Tamil directors such as Balu Mahendra and Mahendran.