R Madhavan was part of Mani Ratnam's musical Netru Indru Naalai for a humanitarian cause

R Madhavan is a popular actor in the south Indian and Bollywood industry. The actor got recognition from his first project with Mani Ratnam, Alaipayuthey2. But did you know that Madhavan was also associated with Mani Ratnam's celebrated musical, Netru Indru Naalai?

Netru Indru Naalai is a series of musical theatre performances that were directed by highly acclaimed film director Mani Ratnam. But did you that R Madhavan had the opportunity to be associated with the project when he was a new face in the industry. The musical theatre performances included a star-studded cast like Kamal Haasan, Vijay and Mohanlal. The show was put together to help an NGO The Banyan to raise funds for its building corpus fund.

The musical was conceptualized in the year 2000 and the first show was portrayed the same year. Over the years, many famous names started appearing in the musical. Big shots like Aamir Khan and Revathi Menon had also made appearances in the musical.

Plot

The three-hour-long musical performance had dance and drama to bring to life the ultimate cinematic moments from Tamil cinema. Netru Indru Naalai means Yesterday, today and tomorrow. A.R. Rahman too was associated with the project and had composed a special song for the show. Along with him, Sabu Cyril and Rajiv Menon too were associated with the project.

Cast of Netru Indru Naalai 

• Kamal Haasan
• Vijay
• R. Madhavan
• Vikram
• Mohanlal
• Asin Thottumkal
• Abhishek Bachchan
• Prakash Raj
• Bharath
• Shriya Saran
• Kiran Rathod
• Pooja
• Sadha
• Malavika
• Rohini
• Vivek
• Genelia D'Souza
• Sridevi
• Vineeth
• Abbas
• Shaam
• Vivek Oberoi
• Silambarasan
• Laila
• Revathi Menon
• Simran
• Srikanth
• Shobana
• Arya
• Bhanupriya
• Sandhya
• Reema Sen
• Shilpa Shetty
• Harini
• Sujatha Mohan

What is The Banyan?

As stated on the official website of The Banyan, it is an NGO based out of Chennai, India and was founded in the year 1983. The NGO was founded by Vandana Gopikumar and Vaishnavi Jayakumar and the NGO caters to the mentally ill and homeless women in the city.

The services and help that the NGO provides include:

• Emergency care as well as critical time interventions offered across 2 hospital based settings, one shelter for homeless persons with psychosocial disabilities. The shelter is operated in collaboration with the Corporation of Chennai. It reaches out to 162 individuals in distress at any given day or time. It has been claimed by the NGO that over 3400 persons have accessed these service since the year it was opened.
• Emergency Care and Recovery Services
• Reintegration & Aftercare
• NALAM: Wellbeing oriented outpatient care
• NALAM Urban
• NALAM Rural
• Inclusive living options
• Clustered Group Homes
• Home Again
• Skills Development

The Banyan has received several accolades over the years. The list of awards received by the NGO are:

• Stree Shakthi Puraskar Award (Ministry of Women and Child Development) in 2003
•  G.D. Birla International Award in 2005,
• The Sat Paul Mittal National Award, 2007,
• AmeriCares Spirit of Humanity Awards, 2011,
• Swiss Foundation award with WHO in 2012 
• Sitaram Jindal Award, 2012,
•  WHO Public Health Champion Award (India), 2017,
• The University of Pennsylvania Nursing Renfield Foundation Award for Global Women's Health in 2018.

Source R Madhavan and Mani Ratnam FB