Major Major ( commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicato ...

A. K. Raveendran SM (born 13 June 1958) is a retired officer of the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the Land warfare, land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Arm ...

and former

National Security Guard The National Security Guard (NSG), commonly known as Black Cats, is a counter-terrorism unit of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It was founded on 16 October 1984, following Operation Blue Star, for combating terrorist activities and ...

commando. He was awarded the President's gallantry medal in 1991 and 1992 for his contributions in fighting terrorism in

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi Language, Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also Romanization, romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the I ...

and

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

. After retiring from the army, he began his career in Indian cinema as a consultant for military-based films. He made his independent directorial debut in 2006 with ''

Keerthi Chakra The Kirti Chakra is an Indian military decoration awarded for valour, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the field of battle. It may be awarded to civilians as well as military personnel, including posthumous awards. It is the ''pe ...

'' for which he won the

Kerala State Film Award for Best Screenplay The Kerala State Film Award The Kerala State Film Awards are the film awards for a motion picture made in Kerala. The awards started in 1969 by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Government of Kerala and since 1998 the awards have be ...

Family

Major Ravi was born to P. Kuttisankaran Nair, who was a soldier in the Indian Army and A. T. Satyabhama. He is married to Anitha. The couple has a son Arjun Ravi.

Military career

He joined the army after his schooling and later pursued his studies within the army and graduated from the Army Cadet College to become an officer in Dec 1984. He served in the Indian Army as a commando in the National Security Guards, as Aide-de-camp (ADC) to the then chief of Indian Army

General Sunith Francis Rodrigues General Sunith Francis Rodrigues, PVSM, VSM (19 September 1933 – 4 March 2022) was an Indian army officer who was Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army from 1990 to 1993 and Governor of Punjab from 2004 to 2010. Early life and educ ...

PVSM, VSM and as an officer in the Indian Military Intelligence in the

Andaman and Nicobar islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...

and

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

. He was head of the mission code-named ''Operation One Eyed Jack'' to capture suspects of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination (the assassination of

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to beco ...

by Thenmozhi Rajaratnam on 21 May 1991 at

Sriperumbudur Sriperumbudur is a town panchayat in the Kanchipuram district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located 40 kilometers southwest of the capital city of Chennai on the National Highway 4 and is just outside the Chennai Metropolitan ...

in Tamil Nadu). His military tenure of four years in the National Security Guard as a

commando Royal Marines from 40 Commando on patrol in the Sangin">40_Commando.html" ;"title="Royal Marines from 40 Commando">Royal Marines from 40 Commando on patrol in the Sangin area of Afghanistan are pictured A commando is a combatant, or operativ ...

inspired him to direct ''

(2006)'' and '' Mission 90 Days'' (2007). At the time of his retirement from the Indian Army, his rank was Major.

Film career

After serving for about two decades in the Indian Army, he became a military consultant for Indian films. He has worked with Indian film makers

Priyadarshan Priyadarshan (born 30 January 1957) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer who works predominantly in Malayalam and Hindi films, while also having done six films in Tamil and two films in Telugu. He has done about 31 films in H ...

Rajkumar Santoshi Rajkumar Santoshi is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter of Hindi films. Having received several accolades including three National Film Awards and six Filmfare Awards, he made his directorial debut with the crime film '' Ghayal' ...

Kamal Haasan Kamal Haasan (born 7 November 1954) is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, playback singer, television presenter and politician who works mainly in Tamil cinema and has also appeared in some Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali f ...

, and

Mani Ratnam Gopala Ratnam Subramaniam (born 2 June 1956), known professionally as Mani Ratnam, is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema and few Hindi, Telugu and Kannada films. Ratnam has won six ...

. He made a children's film, ''Toofan'' in Hindi in 1999, starring

Dileep Gopalakrishnan Padmanabhan Pillai, better known by his stage name Dileep, is an Indian actor, producer, and businessman who predominantly works in the Malayalam film industry. He has acted in more than 150 films and has won several awards, inc ...

and Saba Khan, which had a delayed release in 2010, due to censoring issues. It was dubbed into Malayalam as ''Oru Avadhikaalam''. His first feature film was '' Keerti Chakra'', a film on

Kashmir militancy The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, also known as the Kashmir insurgency, is an ongoing separatist militant insurgency against the Indian administration in Jammu and Kashmir, a territory constituting the southwestern portion of the larger g ...

. His second movie '' Mission 90 Days'' was his own experience of the mission to capture the suspects of Rajiv Gandhi murder case. His third project ''

Kurukshetra Kurukshetra (, ) is a city and administrative headquarter of Kurukshetra district in the Indian state of Haryana. It is also known as Dharmakshetra ("Realm of duty ") and as the "Land of the Bhagavad Gita". Legends According to the Pura ...

'' based on the

Kargil war The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was fought between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999 in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control (LoC). In India, the conflict is also referre ...

starring

Mohanlal Mohanlal Viswanathan (born 21 May 1960), known mononymously as Mohanlal, is an Indian actor, film producer, playback singer, film distributor, and director who predominantly works in Malayalam cinema besides also having sporadically app ...

was a sequel to ''Keerthi Chakra''. The 2010 film ''

Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the c ...

'' was a third installment to the Major Mahadevan film series. In 2012, he directed ''

Karma Yodha ''Karmayodha'' () is a 2012 Indian Malayalam-language action thriller film co-produced, written and directed by Major Ravi. It features Mohanlal, Asha Sarath, Murali Sharma, Sai Kumar, Mukesh, Bineesh Kodiyeri, Rajeev Pillai and Aishwarya De ...

'' with Mohanlal. In 2015, '' Picket 43'', starring Prithviraj and Javed Jaffery was made. It turned out to be a hit. He is now heading towards a fourth installment in the Major Mahadevan series. About the film he quoted: "The focus will be on the individuals rather than the war, and will portray the relationships that are forged during the war."Mohanlal in Major Ravi’s next!
/ref>

Filmography

Television

Awards

Sena Medal The Sena Medal is awarded to members of the Indian army, of all ranks, "for such individual acts of exceptional devotion to duty or courage as have special significance for the Army." Awards may be made posthumously and a bar is authorized for s ...

Kerala State Film Awards The Kerala State Film Awards are the film awards for a motion picture made in Kerala. The awards started in 1969 by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Government of Kerala and since 1998 the awards have been bestowed by Kerala State Ch ...

** 2006: Best Screen Play -

Asianet Film Awards The Asianet Film Awards is an award ceremony for films presented annually by Asianet, a Malayalam-language television network from the south-Indian state of Kerala. Asianet says that awards ceremony has been instituted to honour both artis ...

** 2006: Best Director Award - Keerthi Chakra * 2008: Special Honour Jury Award - Kurukshetra **2010: Best Feature Film on National Integration Award - ''Kandahar''

References

Kerala State Film Award winners Living people Military personnel from Kerala Malayalam film directors Male actors from Kerala Male actors in Malayalam cinema 1958 births People from Palakkad district Indian Army officers 20th-century Indian male actors Indian male film actors Film directors from Kerala 21st-century Indian film directors 21st-century Indian male actors {{India-mil-bio-stub