Neelima Tirumalasetti finds herself in an unfamiliar zone, yet she seems to be quite aware of the twists and turns her life has taken over the past four years. After spending more than 12 years in the US as an IT analyst, she moved back to India in 2008 and joined Pawan Kalyan’s team as the general secretary of Yuvarajyam, the youth wing of PRP. Later, when Pawan Kalyan and Vishnu Vardhan decided to team up for Panjaa, Neelima and her husband Nagesh Muntha turned producers for the film. “After playing an important role in Yuvarajyam, I wanted to continue my journey with Pawan Kalyan. When he was discussing Panjaa with Vishnu, he thought that a new producer might do justice to the subject because it was unlike anything he had done before,” Neelima says. So did her IT background come in handy while working on her first production venture? “Of course. After working in an organised sector like IT, film production was a different ball game. Every day is full of surprises but it’s amazing how everything falls into place at the end of the day. For this film, we wanted to do everything as per plan. It was only because of proper planning that we were able to adhere to the shooting schedule and didn’t go overboard in terms of the budget,” she adds.
Back in 2005, she was in the headlines for filing a lawsuit against Caremark for racial discrimination and four years later, she won the lawsuit, which forced American firms to amend their corporate laws to curb racial discrimination at workplace. “I am a fighter by nature. When PRP wanted to launch their NRI wing, I was invited for an event where I met Pawan Kalyan. When he came to know about the lawsuit, he was amazed at my determination to take on such a big firm. He was very impressed with what I had been doing and asked me to join his team,”she reveals about her first interaction with Pawan Kalyan.
There aren’t too many female producers in the Telugu film industry and Neelima is the first female producer to have worked with Pawan Kalyan in his 15-year-long career. “You have to be mentally prepared for everything. I personally didn’t have any major hiccups, but it’s a tough job. People are really nice to you, but when it comes to accepting suggestions from a woman, they don’t take you seriously,” she smiles and adds, “But I am a hard working person. I was present on the set every single day trying to understand how things are done. After watching how hard people work for each and everything, my respect for film making has increased a lot. Sometimes, people keep doing their job despite suffering injuries and the level of commitment that they have for work is amazing. “
She is quite active on all the social networking sites where she has been interacting with a lot of fans of the actor. “We wanted to have a direct connection with Pawan’s fans because we wanted them to own the film. That’s when they’ll root for the film,” she says. So, what’s the most bizarre thing she has been asked about the film? “Someone asked me if Pawan Kalyan dies within the first 15 minutes of the film. Come on… I don’t think we’ll make a film like that. Panjaa is essentially a love story set in a mafia backdrop and I am sure that Telugu film lovers will be proud of the film,” she says.
