Varun Chakravarthy once earned Rs 600 per day as junior artiste; now receives $300 daily allowance as Indian cricketer

Varun Chakravarthy is a familiar name to anyone who follows Indian cricket and the IPL. The spinner has emerged as one of India’s notable finds in recent years. However, his career path was far from straightforward; in his 20s, he moved between architecture, music, films and cricket before finding his footing in the sport. In a conversation with Ravichandran Ashwin on the podcast Kutti Stories with Ash, Varun spoke about his life before cricket and his brief stint in the film industry.

Talking about the time he tried his hand in the film industry at the age of 25, Varun said, Varun said, “I started hanging out with the movie guys in my group. We used to watch the shooting of films. One day, I got to know that this cricket movie Jeeva was being shot in many cricket stadiums. So I went to the location, thinking I would try to be an assistant director. I had seen some films like Varanam Aayiram and Subramaniapuram. These inspired me a lot during those days. So I felt that I could express myself through the movies. But I couldn’t make it to being an AD on set. But one day on set, an AD came up to me and offered me a part as a junior artiste, asking if I knew how to play cricket. I was like fine, I will come. The salary was Rs 600 per day. That was pretty helpful at that time.”

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When Ravichandran Ashwin asked Varun Chakravarthy about his daily allowance as an Indian cricketer now, he responded modestly, “Right now it is close to 300 US dollars.”

His stint on a film set may have been brief, but it sparked his interest in storytelling. ”The shooting of that film went on for 20 days, and I really liked the process of making a movie. So I started to write stories and scripts. I tried to pitch those scripts to people, but they told me that I was able to write the emotions well, but somehow was not able to translate that to my narration and direction. I had done many short films at the time. Those were not working. That’s all taken off YouTube now, luckily. But then I realized that this was not working for me and stopped trying in films. I started focusing on tennis ball cricket across many stadiums in Chennai. There, I started getting paid for matches and slowly moved up,” said Varun Chakravarthy.