The boy who won the prestigious Kerala State Award for Best Child Artiste and National Film Award for Best Child Artiste for his outstanding performance in the Malayalam movie Ben, has tears in his eyes — not as part of acting but in real life. Gourav Menon is a child artiste known for his roles in Ben, Jilebi and Kolumittayi. He is up against the Kerala State Award winning Malayalam movie Kolumittayi, claiming that the producer of the film, Abijith Asokan has not yet made payment towards him.
Gourav, who played the lead role in the film, claims the film producer and director had promised that they would settle all his payments once they get their satellite rights. He said that his decision to act in this film was only on the basis of humanity, adding that he shot for the film even in harsh climate. When he brought up payments with the film producer, latter mentioned that they are still undergoing a financial crisis and they will settle him once the satellite rights is done.
After a year, the producer visited Gourav Menon’s house and said that they were not able to arrange the required money to settle his payment. Abijith Asokan further requested for a stage show from Gourav Menon in order to secure satellite rating for a channel. In order to get the payment done, Gourav accepted to do the stage show in Chennai. He went there accompanied by his mother, where they were treated badly. “The shooting of this film was to end in April, but was extended till June which made Gourav Menon miss his class for more than a month,” said his mother Jaya Menon. When they filed complaints against this issue, they were not able to get justice as they lacked sufficient evidence.
When consulted with Arun Vishwam, director of the movie Kolumittayi, he said that it was clearly mentioned in the agreement signed to them that Gourav Menon will act without any payments. He also claimed that Gourav Menon’s family had taken an amount of Rs 75000 as a loan. Gourav Menon stated that he is not planning to chase this issue anymore, but he came to the Press Club today just because he doesn’t want any child artiste to get cheated anymore.
