A heart wrenching movie to come out of Tamil cinema this year is the Mari Selvaraj directed Vaazhai, which is based on true life incidents, which Mari Selvaraj himself has experienced/been a witness to in his own life. Vaazhai set in Karungulam near Tirunelveli, takes us through the heart-breaking journey of a school boy, who is forced to do manual labour of lugging raw banana bunches, for a meager payment of Re.1.

Mari Selvaraj also pays homage to a 1999 lorry accident in this movie, which resulted in the death of 20 plantain farm workers, who were buried alive under bananas loaded in the lorry, when it overturned. Mari Selvaraj's real life elder sister was one of the victims of this incident. 

Vaazhai released in theaters on August 23, 2024. The promotions until and post the release of the film have indicated that Mari Selvaraj has included several biographical elements in the movie. However, a Tamil writer by the name Cho Dharman, who is a 2019 Sahitya Academy Award Winner, and has several books and stories to his name, has claimed that Vaazhai with its title and story is very similar to a published short story penned by him 10 years ago.

Speaking to News18 Tamil Nadu, Cho Dharman has said, "I recently watched Vaazhai movie. A lot of friends had told me to watch the film because they said they saw my short story in it...10 years ago I had written the same story that was shown in the Vaazhai movie as Vaazhai Adi--, to mean that small children are suffering at the platain farms. It is the second story in my collection called the Neer Palli."

"Whatever is in my Vaazhai Adi - - story has been picturized as such in the Vaazhai movie. He (Mari Selvaraj) has added a few things for cinematic value, else the hardship of the boys, the village broker, coolie hike, lorry, driver, cleaner, the difficulty walking on the footpath of a field, accidentally falling into the water, wearing undershirts of Rajini, Kamal, everything is extremely similar", Cho Dharman claimed.

He added, "Both my Vaazhai Adi story and the Vaazhai movie register the hardships of young boys who suffer lugging raw banana branches. Only the form of media is different, I have registered in print media, he (Mari Selvaraj) has registered in motion picture media."   

Cho Dharman has said that while he himself didn't get to see many plantain farming near him, he got to know about the same through his brother and his uncle's marriages in Ponnankurichi, near Srivaikuntam. Cho Dharman has also said that his uncle's in-laws own many plantain farms there, and he wrote his story observing the difficulty faced by the kids during his visits to Srivaikuntam.

Cho Dharman also notes, "There is a possibility that Mari Selvaraj hasn't read my story at all. He himself could have lugged raw banana bunches. While that is acceptable, on the basis that I was the first one to give life to the story of the youngsters' difficulty in plantain farming, I am the sole owner of this story." 

Mari Selvaraj on his part has taken to his Facebook account to share a blog link to Cho Dharman's Vaazhai Adi story. He captioned his post, "I just read a short story written by author Cho Dharman on banana load lifting workers. Here's the Vaazhaiadi short story. Everyone must read this story. Thank you author Cho Dharman"