Director Mahendran gave a piece of good advice while speaking at the audio launch of Aval Payer Tamizharasi. He said that a director's true identity lies in the screenplay and one should never compromise on that. He said commercial elements may help but only for a while. The screenplay is the real thing and a director would be known by his style of screenplay, he insisted. Finally he added that the style of storytelling was more important than the story itself.