He finds locations for Indian movies and has visited 140 countries: meet Ramji Natarajan, the man behind the places seen on screen

Ramji Natarajan scouts locations for Indian movie shoots, and has been to 140 countries, including Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Iceland and North Macedonia

He reveals how being bad at studying led him to acting and his current role, places he went in China on a 51-day shoot, and why travel is the true wealth

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Ramji Natarajan in the Salar de Uyuni – the great salt flats of Bolivia. Natarajan is the film location scout behind many of the places you see in Bollywood films. Photo: Ramji Natarajan

Published: 4:15pm, 24 Jul 2022Updated: 6:24pm, 25 Jul 2022

Kyiv’s blue Mariyinsky Palace, residence of the Ukrainian president, is an important piece of scenery in recent Indian superhit RRR.

The palace and its surrounding park were the location for one of the big-budget movie’s most ambitious sequences, involving actors Ram Charan Teja and Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, 50 dancers, around 300 extras and an orchestra.

Filming in Ukraine was the idea of “location guru” Ramji Natarajan who, for 27 days last year, was responsible for the 1,000-strong cast and crew while they were in the country’s capital city.

A film scout since the 1980s, Natarajan – who has found locations in 75 countries for more than 1,000 movies to date – must deliver unique and cost-effective backdrops that showcase the chosen location’s beauty to Indian audiences.

Natarajan shooting in Ukraine for RRR. Photo: Ramji Natarajan

When I reach Natarajan by phone, he is in Tunisia scouring the North African country for his next movie location.

“I have been walking in the bazaars experiencing the energy and chaos,” he says. “I also visited a beautiful Colosseum from Roman times. Another day, I was in the middle of the Sahara desert, jumping into water in a natural oasis.”