his father being out of work, and subsequently they decided to put their remaining earnings into a venture titled Thulluvadho Ilamai (2002), which Selvaraghavan had written. Featuring his brother Dhanush in his first role, alongside Sherin and Abhinay, the film told the coming-of-age story of six high school students and featured a hit soundtrack by Yuvan Shankar Raja. After taking a small opening, the film began to get teen audiences to cinema halls for its adolescent themes, while also being publicised in quarters as a "soft porn" film. It subsequently went on to become a sleeper hit and won positive reviews from critics for breaking the stereotypes of Tamil films. After release, Selvaraghavan stated that he had also directed the film, but was forced to credit his more established film-maker father Kasthuri Raja as the sole director, in order to help the project find a distributor. Following the success of the previous film, the team chose to collaborate again with the psychotic romantic thriller Kaadhal Kondein (2003), credited as Selvaraghavan's first film. The venture, produced by his home production, also marked the first collaboration of Selvaraghavan with cinematographer Arvind Krishna, whom he would later associate with regularly. Selvaraghavan had written the script for the film in the late 1990s and had first narrated the story to Dhanush in their shared bedroom at home, before asking him to play the lead role of Vinod after the success of Thulluvadho Illamai. The story explores the mind of a youth who is mentally and physically abused in his childhood. The lack of a mother's love haunts the protagonist throughout the film as the girl of his infatuation is killed. Becoming a psychopath, he desperately tries to woo his newly found lady love and his efforts culminate in a thrilling climax. The film opened in July 2003 to unanimously positive reviews, with a reviewer from The Hindu noting: "his story, screenplay, dialogue and direction are focused and hit the bull's eye straightway — hardly missing the mark." The film subsequently went on to become a blockbuster and provided career breakthroughs for both Selvaraghavan and Dhanush in the Tamil film industry. Since its release, the film has been remade into several Indian languages, while Selvaraghavan was briefly associated with the Hindi remake to be produced by Boney Kapoor in 2004, but the project did not eventually materialise. Selvaraghavan's next venture was another juvenile love story,