Toilet: Ek Prem Katha director Shree Narayan Singh has been roped in to direct a Hindi movie on Verghese Kurien, the man who brought the milk revolution to the country.
The social drama is backed by Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures. It has acquired the film rights for the book I Too Had A Dream, which chronicles the life of Dr Kurien, who dedicated his life to shaping India's milk industry, a statement said.
"Balaji has always strived to bring interesting stories on screen, and the story of Dr Verghese Kurien is not only engaging but extremely inspiring too. I am delighted to collaborate with Shree Narayan Singh to tell the story of a true visionary," Ekta said.
Image source: drkurien.com
Singh said, "The film will talk about not just making profits and being a huge enterprise but also Dr Kurien's role in empowering the general public, especially women, at the grassroots level. Dr Kurien was a visionary businessman, philanthropist and a great human. He wanted to study nuclear engineering but ended up in the dairy industry."
Dr Kurien is known as the architect of India's White Revolution, which catapulted India to become the world's largest milk producer. He was a proponent of the cooperative movement of small-scale farmers, which went on to contribute to the success of 'Operation Flood', as he himself termed it.
Shyam Benegal's highly acclaimed 1976 movie Manthan (Deep contemplation) traces this journey. This movie is also a celebration of the grit and determination of over 5 lakh members of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation who contributed Rs 2 each to cover the film's production cost – an early instance of crowd-funding.
Image source: drkurien.com
Dr Kurien was born on November 26, 1921 to an affluent Syrian Christian family in Kozhikode. After completing his BSc in Physics from Loyola College in Madras he went on to pursue his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (Distinction) from US on a government scholarship.
On returning to India, he moved to Anand in Gujarat as an officer in the Dairy division. During his stay there, he noticed how farmers were being exploited by milk distributors. He would later leave his job and join hands with the farmers to start the milk cooperative movement in the region.
With IANS inputs