Did you know: TK Dayanand’s original story of Toby was first narrated to Puneeth Rajkumar

The Kannada film Toby, which is releasing on August 25, is based on a story by writer-filmmaker TK Dayanand. More precisely, Raj B Shetty, took the central character, Toby, which appealed to him the most and placed him in a cinematic world that he thought would appeal to audiences. But much before Raj began tinkering with Dayanand’s work, he had decided to send a short version of it to the India Film Project’s Signature Masterclass’ fourth season, which was inviting entries for prospective short films to be funded by the organization.

At the time, Dayanand didn’t think much of it, but soon after, he received word that his story had been shortlisted and that he had to go to Mumbai for further processes. Toby was one of five stories that had been selected by the jury comprising actors Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao, Tamannaah Bhatia and actor-TV hostess Kubra Sait. At the Hyderabad leg of the competition, to his utter surprise, Toby was adjudged the winning entry, with Tamannaah exclaiming that the story had ‘disturbed’ her. To this day, Dayanand says that he is not sure how the life of a man from Kumta could have such a deep impact on the judging committee of the Signature Masterclass, especially since the contest had attracted close to four lakh entries.

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Thereafter, Dayanand attempted to make a film of it and wrote parts of the script as well, which he then narrated to (late) Puneeth Rajkumar. His wife, Ashwini, was also present during the two and a half hour narration, at the end of which, the late Power Star said that it is an emotionally charged subject that felt more apt as a Malayalam movie. Moreover, the actor said that his core audience was families and youngsters and that at that point of his career, he was not sure if audiences would accept him in such a ‘bizarre’ role and that he was not ready to experiment.