Meet Vidyasaagar Muthukumar, debut director of the Telugu web series ‘In the Name of God’

The story of Vidyasaagar Muthukumar’s thriller web series starring Priyadarshi Pulikonda, Nandini Rai and Mohd Ali Baig, stemmed from a real incident

An incident that occurred in his hometown, Trichy, spurred Vidyasaagar Muthukumar to write a fictional story exploring how an event can change the course of a protagonist’s life. The thriller web series In the Name of God (ING), scheduled to première on Aha on June 18, marks Vidyasaagar’s debut as director. “The story explores the journey of Priyadarshi (Pulikonda)’s character, Aadi, through love, lust and violence. If I say anything more, I would be revealing plot points,” says Vidyasaagar. ING also stars Nandini Rai and Mohd Ali Baig, among others, and Season 1 will have seven episodes of 40-45 minutes duration each. Vidyasaagar graduated in visual communication and enrolled in the LV Prasad Film & TV Academy, Chennai. An avid watcher of films across languages and borders, he emphasises that language has never been an issue. Which explains how a Tamil-speaking aspiring filmmaker didn’t hesitate to make his directorial debut with a Telugu series. “I’ve made short films in Malayalam and Hindi,” he shares. He narrated the story of ING to Suresh Krissna (the director of Rajinikanth films such as Annamalai and Baasha, and the Chiranjeevi-starrer Master, among several other hits) through his friend and director Ranga (who directed the web series Auto Shankar, streaming on Zee5). Suresh Krissna turned producer for ING.