Pawan Kumar is an enterprising man. In 2012, when Kannada cinema was in dire need of a next-wave movement, he made the crowd-funded psychological thriller Lucia, which inspired several filmmakers to break the tried-and-tested formula in the industry. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Pawan launched the Filmmakers United Club (FUC). During a period when the film industry was staring at an uncertain future, the FUC ensured activities related to cinema, such as online film screenings and discussions, were sustained.
In 2023, he surprised everyone by pursuing farming, a move that came on the back of the debacle of his last directorial film, Dhoomam, starring Fahadh Faasil and produced by Hombale Films. Many felt it was his way of dealing with the Malayalam film’s failure. Pawan says he never thought of farming as a break from doing movies. “I can’t say I completely moved to farming. We bought a piece of land and I had to figure out what to do with it,” he says.
At the farm called Pasownas in Hullahalli near Mysuru, Pawan grows fruits and vegetables, and plants saplings. Having completed a permaculture design course, Pawan’s full-fledged involvement in farming meant that his ardent followers had to wait a bit longer for his return to cinema. The actor-filmmaker held a couple of filmmaking workshops against the picturesque backdrop of the farm. In one of his videos, he compared farmers to writers, calling them the fundamental origin of a quality product.
Keeping aside the comparison of farming with movies, Pawan notes, “You can live without films, but you can’t say the same about food. Farming has been an eye-opening experience. When I understood what goes into growing food, it was a huge lesson, and I persisted with farming. The process of working with nature is challenging and complex. You might come with a great plan, but three days of rain will offset everything. So I learnt to deal with such uncertainties.”
After a two-year hiatus, Pawan sprung a surprise by revealing that he was back in front of the camera. He plays the lead in Shodha, the upcoming Kannada ZEE5 original web series. Set to premiere on August 29, Shodha is reportedly adapted from the Hindi web series Khoj. Also starring Siri Ravikumar and Arun Sagar, Shodha is a psychological thriller about a man’s desperate search for his missing wife.
Pawan Kumar in the Kannada web series ‘Shodha’.
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“The corporates have their reasons to not invest in Kannada. That’s why I was excited when I learnt that ZEE5 was keen on Kannada originals. If we don’t respond to such demands from the platforms, we will be stuck in a chicken-and-egg situation. I jumped into the project without even reading my contract. The acting bug in me is always alive,” he says.
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Sunil Mysore (Orchestra Mysuru fame)is the director, while stand-up comedian Suhash Navarathna has written the script for Shodha. Pawan has been credited as a script doctor. “Even though I tried to be just an actor in the first couple of days on sets, my writer-director side would pop up without my knowledge. I suggested some tweaks to the narrative structure of Shodha, apart from revising certain lines in the script. I tried to elevate the existing material, and the entire team was okay with it,” explains Pawan.
Having directed the time-loop drama Kudi Yedamaithe for Aha and co-directed the Netflix dystopian drama Leila starring Huma Qureshi, Pawan isn’t new to the OTT space. The filmmaker confesses that he would want to explore the web series space. “A web series takes away the box office pressure. Today, apart from exceptions such as Tourist Familyand Su From So, films that are doing well are “event films” that are big on scale. My films are an intimate experience, and I approach scenes in a more niche manner compared to a ‘masala’ movie. In a web series, you can tell a story through multiple dimensions rather than following a template.”
Dhoomam, a thriller that addressed the ill effects of smoking,was Pawan’s first failure. With a popular production house (Hombale) and one of the country’s finest actors (Fahadh), the film looked like a sure-shot hit on paper. However, it stumbled at the box office. Pawan says the film’s result has left him a tad confused, though he now knows where he went wrong.
“Till the day of the release, I showed the film to so many people, including the producers and heads of some OTT platforms. All of them gave a positive response. I learnt that if out of 10 people, even if one person has a sharp criticism about your work, you must value him or her,” he says, adding he would have loved to make one change in the script.
“The video where Alfred Hitchcock talks about the ‘bomb moment’ is quite popular. He says that if two people are talking and there is a bomb under their table, you must show the bomb first and then show them talking. In Dhoomam, I made the mistake of not revealing the uncomfortable truth in the beginning. If I had not hidden it, the viewing experience would have been different for the audience,” he reasons.
Pawan also blamed the dialogues of the original version for the film’s poor fate. “I learnt that the dialogues in Malayalam were very academic and didn’t have a soul. I don’t speak a word of Malayalam, and completely depended on the translation and direction department,” he rues.
Despite the poor result, the film has found its target audience, believes Pawan. “When we released the movie on YouTube, there was a sudden wave of audience liking the movie. I put a QR code with the ending credits. People could scan and write to me. I am glad I did that because so many people wrote to me saying they could relate to it. So, the box office result and the reception on YouTube were contrasting, leaving me a bit confused. Then I realised that there is always an audience for your works. Even if not now, years later, your film will find its audience.”
No conversation with Pawan is complete without a query about Dvitva, his ambitious project with Puneeth Rajkumar that couldn’t take off due to the untimely demise of the actor in 2021. “There are talks going on about turning into a web series. That said, I haven’t been able to decide on the lead actor,” he signs off.
Shodha will stream on ZEE5 from August 29, 2025
Published – August 22, 2025 03:04 pm IST
