Bala is a non-believer of God and he had never tried to hide this ‘belief’ of him. However, the national award wining director has now made a decision not to talk about atheism anymore.

“When many pray with utmost belief, who am I to stop them? What right I have to badmouth their confidence? So I will not say anything on atheism in the future,” he says.

Bala’s attention is now focused on ‘Avan Ivan’, his first humour outing. “My guru Balumahendra and Illayaraja asked me to shed violence and try something different. ‘Avan Ivan’ falls in this genre.”

Heaping laurels on Vishal and Arya, the protagonists of the movie, Bala says, “Both had worked hard for ‘Avan Ivan’. I sincerely hope that Vishal would get a fitting honour for his squint-eyed act in the film.”