S M Raju (Rajendran Meena Sivasankaran) completed his bachelors in computer science from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India. He was a successful computer scientist in the USA where he did his graduate studies. He worked as a senior researcher in Verizon Labs and then went on to start Knumi, a venture funded startup in 2000 that developed cutting edge video search and voice based search technologies. He has two US patents to his credit. His passion for film and theater led him to write, direct and produce several theater works for Navarasa Dance Theater (navarasa.org). He has served as a board member of Yantra Media, a TV production house. He has produced over 120 educational videos for school children for the government of Tam- ilnadu, India. He has also produced children's content for the home video market. He is also a multiple winner of the James Baldwin playwright award. He was one of the executive producers of Anandabhadram, a Malayalam feature film (anandabhadram.com). His critically acclaimed directorial debut film Varnam (varnamthefilm.com) explores universal themes of prejudice, faith and forgiveness in an Indian context that is caught at the crossroads of globalization and feudal traditions. In 2011 Varnam was released in India and was officially selected for the London Asian Film Festival 2011, Montreal World Film Festival 2011, Chennai International Film Festival 2011, Norway Tamil Film Festival 2012, Newyork Indian Film Festival 2012 and the Roxbury International Film Festival 2012.