For debutant filmmaker Varsha Vasudev, Chinna Chinna Aasai did not begin as a carefully planned feature. It began with a city. The film, hitting theatres on June 19, follows two strangers, Leela (Madhoo) and Madhavan (Indrans), whose chance meeting in Varanasi grows into a quiet emotional connection over the course of a day. Set against the ghats, narrow streets, and spiritual atmosphere of the ancient city, it is less concerned with plot than with human presence and companionship. Varsha describes it simply as "a small, soulful film, much like its title."
"I never set out to make a film in Varanasi," she says, settling into the conversation easily. "I visited the city a few years ago, fell in love with it, and wanted to visually narrate the emotions and soulful feeling it gave me. I was writing another script when I travelled to Varanasi, and this film emerged from that experience." The film's origins lie in a solitary night she spent by the river, having arrived without much planning, the way she feels one is meant to visit the city. "You only go to Varanasi when the city calls you," she reflects.
What stayed with her wasn't the chaos most travellers describe, but its absence. "What surprised me was the silence of Varanasi at midnight," she recounts. "People speak about it as a place of realisation, and it brought a kind of clarity in life. There was a gentle breeze, a slight chill, and small boats on the river. Sitting there alone, I felt an emotional connection with the city and a sense of magic that I couldn't explain. I suddenly felt like writing." That sense of solitude amid spiritual crowding became the emotional spine of the film. "In Varanasi, I saw many people sitting alone, and there was a great deal of loneliness around me," she says. "I wanted to explore it through two characters."
The idea of strangers finding comfort in one another is something she traces back to her own travels. "What I really like is the comfort of strangers. There is no judgement. Sometimes they help us, and sometimes they simply listen to us. I find that space very beautiful," she says. When she sat down to write two characters meeting in Varanasi, she wanted them to be mature and unfamiliar to one another, carrying that same unguarded ease.
Casting, too, came from instinct rather than calculation. "I definitely had Indrans sir in mind from the beginning," she recalls. "I wanted a character with the innocence that he naturally brings. I could already imagine his mannerisms and reactions." For Leela, she had already decided against casting someone from Malayalam cinema, wanting the character to feel authentically Tamil, which drew her instead towards Mani Ratnam's heroines. "I'm a huge fan of Mani Ratnam sir, and I felt many of his yesteryear heroines would be apt for Leela. While writing, I found a connection between Madhoo ma'am's character in Roja and Leela's backstory. That's when I started thinking of her as Leela," she explains. The title arrived through the same train of thought. "While thinking about her, the song ‘Chinna Chinna Aasai’ from Roja naturally came to my mind. Since the film is about small dreams and wishes, that's when the title came to me," she adds.
Shooting in Varanasi proved far more demanding than writing about it. "Crowd control in Varanasi is almost impossible," she admits. "We would try to clear locations before the actors arrived, but people would still walk through the frame." The shoot overlapped with the Kumbh Mela, complicating things further, yet the team wrapped in 28 days. "Indrans sir and Madhoo ma'am never complained, even when we couldn't provide proper comforts, and all they had was a chair or a stool. We shot from morning until late at night, dealing with fever, colds and exhaustion," she recounts, adding that locals who were initially irritated by the disruption eventually warmed to the production.
Capturing the city visually meant resisting the urge to beautify it beyond recognition. Working with cinematographer Faiz Siddik, she wanted something more honest. "Since the film is about finding connection and romance, we wanted Varanasi to look beautiful, but not in a superficial way. We didn't want to compromise on the city's aesthetic. At the same time, Varanasi has its rough edges and imperfections, and wherever the story demanded it, we embraced that reality," she explains.
Much of her confidence as a filmmaker traces back to Ente Narayanikku, her 2021 pandemic-era short that convinced her she could make a feature. The film, featuring Aditi Ravi and Unni Mukundan’s voice, went on to strike a chord with viewers, gathering close to 10 million views on YouTube to date. "Before choosing cinema, I worked in IT for nearly two years after completing my engineering. I always loved films, though I had no family background in cinema, and making one felt like a distant dream," she recalls.
Though Chinna Chinna Aasai arrives at a time when audiences often gravitate towards spectacle, Varsha believes stories about quiet companionship still have a place. "People often say audiences today have fast-paced lives, but this film deals with something basic and universal," she says. "I don't know how deep human relationships are anymore, but I do know that what people need most is love and compassion."
Coming from Pattambi in Palakkad, Varsha says her family, especially her mother, supported her decision to pursue cinema despite initial apprehensions. Growing up, she was drawn to stories rooted in emotion and human connection. "I love romance, but not necessarily in the conventional sense. What interests me most is human connection," she says, citing films like Thanmathra and Sadayam that left a deep impression on her. "Even though we know it's Lalettan or Mammookka on screen, I used to remain emotionally affected for days," she recalls. She laughs at her own preferences. "I often joke that I'm a sad person because those are the films that affect me the most," she admits. At the same time, she is eager to explore other genres, especially horror.
Looking ahead to Chinna Chinna Aasai's theatrical run, what Varsha hopes for from audiences is fairly straightforward. "I would simply ask people to relax and watch the film," she says. "This is a conversation-driven film. If you can connect with these two characters and invest a couple of hours in their journey, I think the experience will be rewarding."