Amaran, a biopic on Major Mukund Varadarajan is slated to release in theaters on October 31, 2024 (Thursday) marking the Diwali festival. As much the movie starring Sivakarthikeyan in the lead is about Mukund V's life in the Indian army, Amaran is also about Mukund's relationship with his wife Indhu Rebecca Varghese, which director Rajkumar Periyasamy has described to be 'sublime'. 

Indhu Rebecca Varghese was just 30 years old when her 31 year old husband was martyred while carrying out a counter-terrorism operation in the Qazipathri village of Shopian, Jammu and Kashmir (back when the current union territories Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh were all known as a collective single state, J&K). Mukund in 2014 was also survived by his then 3 year old Ashreya, and Indhu Rebecca Varghese's 'The Buck Stops Here' interview with NDTV's Barkha Dutt 9 months post his death had moved the entire country.

10 years later Indhu Rebecca Varghese has been spotted promoting her husband's biopic Amaran, and actress Sai Pallavi portrays her in the Kamal Haasan-produced film. Speaking about getting to play the resilient Indhu, Sai Pallavi has said in 'Evolution of Amaran' Episode 5, 

"First when I read the script, I thought how much of this would I be able to portray, how will I portray this..This was back when I was reading a lot of scripts, and I thought to myself if there was something much more exciting, or something that pushed myself. But once I met this person Indhu, I realized it is the ordinary people in extraordinary situations who bring the strength, integrity and an elegance. That was very difficult for me to process."

Sai Pallavi wasn't the only one with high regards for Indhu's strength and integrity. Amaran director Rajkumar Periyasamy has time and again spoken highly of Major Mukund's wife. In 'Introduction to Amaran' episode 3, the director said,

"Indhu Rebecca Varghese is a very very important character in Amaran movie, which is exactly why she is part of the film's promotions..One one hand, if Mukund was fighting a war (on field), she was fighting a type of proxy war with the family (Indhu is a Malayali Christian who fell in love with her college senior Mukund, A Tamil Brahmin. Being the youngest daughter with two older brothers with significant age gap, she said that it was an uphill task to get 'her three fathers' to approve of her and an army man like Mukund's relationship), then with loneliness (Mukund and Indu spent only about few months together in a year, and were together only for a year in their 5 years of marriage because of the nature of his job), now she is surviving (Indhu Rebecca Varghese has not remarried despite no objections from her in-laws, and continues her life as a single mother). I had to balance all this in my story. So that responsibility was big for me while setting out to make Amaran." 

“The night before he died, on 24th midnight, I was unable to sleep and I spoke to him till wee hours in the morning. On the 25th, I had slept early since I was drowsy and I did not pick up any calls all night. The next day a family friend had come home to tell me the news and I just kept asking him to repeat the details over and over. You see characters in denial in movies and it happens just like that in real life; I didn’t want to believe it even though I knew it was true. I went into the room and hugged my daughter for awhile.” - Indhu Rebecca Varghese in a 2017 print interview. 

 

On casting Sai Pallavi as Indhu, director Rajkumar said, "At India's highest stage, at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, we needed a stoic personality with the range of standing in front of the President to receive an award. I thought Sai Pallavi could bring justice to both sides of playing a martyr's widow, and being an innocent college student who is an outsider and is trying to blend here..Sai Pallavi took those efforts (to bring this onscreen)..She plays a Malayalai, and she has not imitated (Indhu), she has taken in the character, and brought her own interpretation of the scenes written, and has done well (in the Amaran movie)."  

Indhu Rebecca Varghese has also reacted positively to Sai Pallavi playing her in the movie. In the 'Evolution of Amaran', Episode 5 she said of the actress, "I lover her a lot. I think she is a simple and genuine soul. So I felt that to portray me, she would be the perfect one",