Kamal Haasan talks about how music came into his life. And dance. And everything else. Baradwaj Rangan listens.
Forget the actor. That was the brief. After fifty years of acting, that’s the only facet of Kamal Haasan people think about. Sometimes, maybe, they think of Kamal Haasan the writer or Kamal Haasan the director. But it’s almost always the actor. So one evening this April, in Bangalore, I asked him about the other things: the singing, the poetry, the photography, and the dancing, especially the dancing. He was in the city filming Uthama Villain, but it was the day of the elections, so there was no shooting across the state. Dressed in a white linen ensemble and looking extremely relaxed, he told me, “This kind of exposure to the arts you can get only in two places – either a Brahmin household or a community dedicated to art. I didn’t have a choice. I was born into this Brahmin atmosphere.”
He spoke about a house in Paramakudi filled with music. His mother played the violin. Elder brothers Charuhasan and Chandrahasan were singers. “So it was an environment of music,” he said. “Like others hum cinema songs, classical music would be running through my mind.” But as far as the others in the family were concerned, he was about as talented as his father, who couldn’t sing at all and, therefore, had decided to become a patron of the arts. The house was on a two-acre tract of land, and half of it became a sort of open-air auditorium where artists would be invited to perform. MLV. Madurai Somu. A young Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan.
Kamal Haasan spoke about his sister, the family’s only daughter, who was sent off to train in classical dance in a gurukulam in Tanjore when she was five. “When she was eight, she returned to find a surprise, a very late-born brother. That was me. I was not planned. Everything else in the family was planned. The eldest son would be a lawyer. The second son would also be a lawyer. The daughter was going to be a classical dancer.” They even named her Mrinalini, because his father was a great fan of Mrinalini Sarabhai.
Listening to Kamal Haasan speak is like sitting down for a screenplay narration. The tone is steady. The tale is dramatic. Then, when you least expect it, there’s a splash of comic relief. He narrated the stretch where he – we should probably name this character in the flashback; let’s call him by the diminutive Kamal – was cut off from art for a while when his mother was diagnosed as a chronic diabetic and had to be sent to Chennai, where her elder brother lived. Kamal accompanied her. “I was about three. They enrolled me in Holy Angels. I had this uncanny knack of running away. I’d pick up a taxi and come back home.”
Kamal turned five. He became an actor. And music and dance returned to his life when his sister came to Chennai. He used to escort her on the bus for veena classes, and there, to keep him out of mischief, he’d be given a small veena to play. “In a way,” Kamal Haasan said, “I could say that music is my sister’s strong influence.” He said that he was not a keen learner of the arts. He just picked things up by ear, karna parampara, rather than actual practice. But he used to talk like he was going to perform at Music Academy the next day. “All that was leaning towards acting, not playing the veena,” he laughed.
***
The story Kamal Haasan told that evening kept going back and forth in time, a jumble of memories – like this one from when Kamal was seven or eight. One of his friends from Hindu High School was Palghat Mani Iyer’s son, Rajaram – they formed a mutual admiration society. Kamal thought that Rajaram was a brilliant violinist. Rajaram regarded Kamal as a budding veena genius. “He took me around saying that this guy is a genius, he knows everything. But I couldn’t play. I could only talk about it. I didn’t know how to get out of it.” So Kamal had this fear. There was disdain too. “What you cannot do, you tend to dislike. It was too much hard work.”
When I spoke to Rajaram, he recalled an incident from when they were eleven and asked to perform for the District Educational Officer. Rajaram played the violin. Kamal performed mimicry, imitating the sound of a frog and other creatures, like he would do one day in Aval Oru Thodarkadhai. Rajaram also remembered Kamal’s fascination for a Hollywood actor whose name eluded him. Kamal used to pretend to be the actor who, on screen, went about catching a butterfly. “He would perform so beautifully, it was like there was really a butterfly in the room.”
Then, this anecdote, from when Kamal was ten or twelve. He joined TK Shanmugam’s theatre troupe – Kamal Haasan respectfully called him “Annachi” – where he was trained in swordfight and stunts and even dance. “That’s where I suddenly thought: Maybe I can shake a leg.” This is possibly the understatement of the century.
***
“I think I discovered myself as a singer in TKS Nataka Sabha,” Kamal Haasan said. But it was an arduous, and somewhat accidental, discovery. The troupe was staging a play named Appavin Aasai. There were songs in it, but because no one knew if Kamal could sing they played these songs on a Grundig spool-type tape recorder and asked him to lip-sync them on stage. Then, one evening, the tape snapped. This was the scene on stage: the mother is dying, and she wants her son (played by Kamal) to sing one last song for her. Shanmugam Annachi, never one to let the show not go on, urged Kamal from the wings: “Go on! You know the words. Sing!” And Kamal sang Uzhaithu pizhaikka vendum, which seems a rather odd song to sing in this situation. Anyway, as scripted, the mother died. The unscripted coda to the scene: a singer was born.
“That’s when I realised I could boldly sing before an audience,” Kamal Haasan said. “And it’s not like playback singing, where the mike is in front of you. The mike is at a distance.” In a play named Avvaiyaar, Kamal played the young Murugan, singing folk songs while perched on a tree.
A number of names, famous and otherwise, popped up as supporting characters in Kamal Haasan’s flashback. SG Kasi Iyer, SG Kittappa’s brother who composed the music for a dance drama on Lord Muruga’s Arupadai Veedu; he would compose perfect swarams for sound effects, to mimic, say, the opening of a door. Madurai Venkatesan, who taught Kamal the basics of Carnatic music. KB Sundarambal, who lived in the house behind Kamal’s and would make aappams and sing songs for him when he jumped over the wall to visit his classmate Ganapathy Subramaniam, her adopted son. (“In my naiveté, I used to sing Pazham nee appa to her. And she tolerated my singing.”) And Mylapore Gowri Ammal. “I had the great honour of lying on her lap, in the Ranganatha pose, as I watched my sister learn dance. She would sometimes play the thaalam on my shoulder or cheek.”
***
Another famous name played a bigger part in Kamal’s musical education, and for that story, we must cut to the early 1980s. Kamal is a very busy actor. It’s been some ten years since he sat in Madurai Venkatesan’s class. It’s been ten years since he learnt any new music. He’s shooting in Bombay for Karishma, the Hindi remake of Tik Tik Tik. He has an accident. He breaks a leg. He has to buy two tickets to fly to Chennai, the extra one for the seat in front that has to be folded down so he can stretch that broken leg. The man in the adjacent seat observes his plight and asks him: “What are you going to do in the months it’s going to take for this to heal?”
That was M. Balamuralikrishna. Kamal said he didn’t know. Balamuralikrishna asked Kamal if he liked music. Kamal nodded. Balamuralikrishna said, “Instead of wasting time, why don’t you learn something from me?” Kamal thought he was joking – until Balamuralikrishna landed up at Kamal’s house the next day. Classes began with the shishya’s foot in the air. “My guru found me,” Kamal Haasan said.
Balamuralikrishna asked Kamal what he’d learnt. Kamal said he knew some 30-odd keerthanais. Balamuralikrishna asked him to sing. Kamal sang. Balamuralikrishna said, gently, “Let’s start at the beginning, with a geetham.” Kamal Haasan laughed at the memory. “So I knew what he thought of me. He wanted me to be good enough to give a public performance, but I wasn’t there yet. He still keeps asking me when I am going to sing on stage.”
When Kamal’s leg got better, Balamuralikrishna said, “We can shift the classes to my house.” Kamal began to hobble over to his guru’s house, where he’d sit on a sofa and learn music. Eventually, Balamuralikrishna asked him, “Is your leg okay? Can you walk?” Kamal said yes. Balamuralikrishna said, “Then you can sit on the floor and continue.”
Classes went on for about one-and-a-half years. I asked Kamal Haasan to name something he learnt. He thought for a minute and then launched into the Karnataka Kapi geetham, Shree Raghurama samara bheema. I thought he’d stop there, with this opening line of the pallavi, but he continued… Sasi mouli vinuta seeta ramana… mukendu lalitha hasa pariyathi… And then he sang the swarams… pa dha ni pa ma ri ri ga ma ri sa / pa dha pa sa ni pa dha ni pa ma ri ga ma… He stopped dramatically, after negotiating the sharp, colourful turn at ramana… ri ga ma.
Kamal Haasan said he still remembered the song because he learnt it when he was going to New Delhi to receive the National Award for Best Actor for Moondram Pirai. “My guru asked me to learn a new geetham for the occasion.” When the leg healed and Kamal resumed shooting, he continued with classes whenever he found the time. He’d call Balamuralikrishna and go over. Then, during a shooting, Kamal misplaced a notebook filled with song notations. “I think he was a little upset about this. Then I got busy, and we gradually lost touch – otherwise, I would have been his student for 22 years now.” I asked him about his guru’s dream, that Kamal Haasan should sing on stage. He laughed. “Balamuralikrishna saying that I can do this is like ‘Sivaji’ Ganesan saying, “Nadippu romba easy pa.’ You shouldn’t take it seriously.”
***
I had one last question about theatre when I met Kamal Haasan again in June, at his office in Chennai. Did he miss it? Doesn’t he feel like doing the odd play between films, the way Richard Burton did, the way Denzel Washington does? “Yes,” he said. “But even if I am performing on stage, I’d still like it to be televised. I want more people to see it. The bane of a theatre artist is that he can’t get his art across to a large audience. I have gotten used to technology, to that audience.” He compared this to running, and then suddenly slowing down to walk. “I am refusing to walk… unless it’s for health reasons.” He does this often. He’ll think up a metaphor on the spot, and then he’ll put a spin on it that sounds like a non sequitur but perhaps really isn’t.
***
We then began to talk about the movies, about his singing for them, beginning with the number Gnayiru oli mazhayil. The film was Andharangam, where Kamal played the manager of a “beauty clinic” that’s frequented exclusively by young women who want to get into shape and often find themselves entwined in the tape measure in his hands. Between takes, he would keep humming on the sets, and one day ‘Muktha’ Srinivasan, the director, caught him singing a keerthanai. A surprised Srinivasan decided to make Kamal sing a number for the film and took him to the music director G Devarajan – or “Devarajan Master,” as he was called. Devarajan Master was very close to Thangappan Master, the choreographer under whom Kamal had worked for a while as an assistant, and he knew Kamal. During the recording, he stood near the new playback singer, moving his hands the way conductors do. “I was very scared of him,” Kamal Haasan said. “You can feel that fear in the song.”
The same year, 1975, Kamal spent seven months learning to play the mridangam when K Balachander told him that his character in Aboorva Raagangal was required to play the instrument. “That’s why I play so convincingly in the film,” he said. Music was all around him. He spoke of his co-stars – the Malayalam actress Srilalitha who was a student of the composer Dakshinamurthy, and Srividya, who, of course, was the daughter of ML Vasanthakumari. “We were all very close and I would keep asking them to sing.”
Sometimes, they would perform at music nights helmed by Gangai Amaran. “Film stars singing light music was a new thing then,” Kamal Haasan said. They used to sing Tamil songs, Hindi songs, and then, one day, they were invited to perform at a function organized by Cinema Express magazine. Kamal suggested that they sing One, a song written by Harry Nilsson and later popularised by Three Dog Night. Someone asked him if the audience would understand. He said if they could “understand” a Sanskrit shloka then they could understand this. “It’s the same. It’s all music.”
This is not a new anecdote (and people familiar with the Kamal Haasan mythology will know where this is headed), but it was something to hear it in person. The Harry Nilsson original is a mid-range song, and the Three Dog Night cover touches a few higher notes, but when Kamal Haasan launched into the number, he leaped over an octave and hit a stunning falsetto note – it isn’t there in either of the earlier versions. This is probably how he sang the song that night, at the function, and the audience applauded. Seated in the audience, and listening very carefully to the way Kamal caught that pitch, was Ilayaraja.
***
And that’s how Kamal Haasan got to sing Ninaivo oru paravai, in Sigappu Rojakkal. Ilayaraja said he liked the way Kamal handled those high notes, and he asked Kamal to sing the song again. Kamal went, One is the loneliest number… Ilayaraja was mentally translating this to pa pa pa pa pa pa pa…, the humming that oozes through the interstices of the pallavi of Ninaivo oru paravai. “He used what I could give him,” Kamal Haasan told me, gently altering the sometimes-held image of the Isaignani as an iron-fisted dictator whose only inputs come from inside his head.
He narrated how Ilayaraja, during a recording rehearsal, heard a nadaswaram player prepare for playing by blowing on the seevali, the reed mouthpiece at the top of the tube. This was incorporated into a musical stretch in Hey Ram, as the Vasundhara Das character’s rendition of Vaishnava janato segues into Vaaranam aayiram. “I doubt the sound of the seevali being blown has been heard in cinema music,” Kamal Haasan said. “He’ll take what people can give him and produce these uncanny moments.”
Anyway, back to the recording session of Ninaivo oru paravai. Afterwards, Ilayaraja told Kamal, “Hey, nalla irukku ya. Madhyanam paattayum neengale paadidunga.” [Hey, that’s great. Why don’t you sing the song we’re recording in the afternoon too?”] And that song turned out to be Panneer pushpangale, from Aval Appadithaan, a revelation that left me slightly weak-kneed. Considering Ilayaraja’s prolificity, logic dictates that this was something that happened all the time, that several songs would be recorded during the course of a day. But to imagine two… (there’s no other word for it) classics like these casually being tossed off without a huge amount of pre-planning… After all, the singer himself seems to have been roped in only after he sang the morning’s song…
I asked Kamal Haasan about the small gamakam, the melisma rather, in the first line of Panneer pushpangale, at raagam paadu. I was curious whether it was the result of his improvising (based on his classical training) or whether it was how Ilayaraja had composed it. He said, “Raja knows how much will work. He’ll say, ‘Avvalavu vendam, konjam koraichukkunga.’ [That’s too much. Tone it down a bit.] And that makes it different from the usual gamakam. Sundari neeyum, he left it to me.” Kamal Haasan hummed, perfectly, the downward slide of akaras that leads back to the pallavi. Ilayaraja told Kamal, “Ahn, sari, sari. Jamaai.” [Okay. Have fun.]
Kamal Haasan said that he considered Ilayaraja one of his gurus. “As with acting, there can be posturing in singing. He doesn’t like that. He’ll say, ‘Do what suits your voice. Don’t try to sing like others.’ Above all, he taught me how to sing with abandon. ‘Just relax,’ he’ll say. He taught me how to relax over the about 50 recordings I’ve done for him.” Kamal Haasan pointed to Sanyasa mantram in Hey Ram where his voice is, as he put it, held back. “It’s not about performing to an audience,” he said. “It’s a very personal thing.” Because of the camaraderie and the casualness with which these lessons were imparted, he didn’t realise then that they were lessons. “And that was a lesson as well,” he said, “the way it was taught in a very pedestrian manner, without major technical terms, very simply.”
***
“After ’77 or so, I cannot recall going to another music director,” Kamal Haasan told me. The “I” threw me off, because he wasn’t exactly making movies then, merely acting in them – and the task of “going to a music director,” one assumes, falls on the person making the movie: the director. But he’s probably talking of a time when one could get as involved with the filmmaking process as one wished, when even an actor who’s only required to show up on the sets would show up at music sittings, with the director and the composer. Kamal was present at a lot of music sittings with K Balachander, in whose films he’d come to resemble a stock company actor. These sessions, Kamal Haasan said, helped him when he began directing films and began to tell the music director that this wasn’t quite what he was looking for, or that he wanted a tweak there. “My sessions with KB and Raja gave me that confidence.”
So when he’s talking about not going to another music director after ’77 or so, he’s probably referring to 16 Vayadhinile, which was the first film that had Kamal as the leading man and Ilayaraja as the composer. It’s an association that flourished up to the mid-1990s, roughly — till which point the non-Ilayaraja films were relatively rare.* The high points are too numerous to recount. Aattu kutti muttayittu in ’77, Orey naal unai naan in ’78, Ninaithaal inikkum in ’79, Azhagu aayiram in ’80, Andhi mazhai pozhigiradhu in ’81… Kamal Haasan spoke about the composing session for the latter, from Rajapaarvai, which he produced and which Singeetham Srinivasa Rao directed. “Singeetham kept asking Raja for more tunes. Those days, Raja would come up with many options. He made nine tunes, but I knew that the first one was the best and we eventually came back to it.”
And then he began to talk about what seems to have become his favourite anecdote to illustrate his working relationship with Ilayaraja. “The way Inji iduppazhaga came about is itself an exercise in knowing how an artist’s mind works,” he said. Ilayaraja kept asking Kamal what he wanted… exactly. Kamal said he couldn’t say… exactly. “I said, ‘You have to be the paediatrician. The child does not know how to say what’s happening. You have to find out.’ ” Kamal explained that it had to be a monotonous tune, a simple melody that kept looping back, like something that would air on Pappa Malar, the All India Radio show conducted by “Vanoli Anna” where children sang, often breathlessly. Ilayaraja said, “That’s a good idea, but how do you make a populist song out of it? It will be a funny song, but how do you make a populist song?” And Kamal began to sing Yeh dil deewana hai, the SD Burman number from Ishq Par Zor Nahin.
And, in front of me, Kamal Haasan launched into the Hindi song. This, I’m beginning to realise, was the best part of these interviews, his impromptu launches into song – and he sounds exactly like how he does in the recordings, exactly. After he finished, he said, “If it had been any other music director, Raja might not have listened. But he has a special respect for SD.” Ilayaraja began to tap out a thaalam on the harmonium, and within ten minutes, he had a variation on the SD Burman tune, and the composing was done. Kamal Haasan told me, “It’s not like he was taking from the tune. He was taking from my need.”
For Michael Madana Kamarajan, Kamal wanted a song like Maargazhi thingal, a verse from the Thirupaavai. “And he came up with Sundari neeyum. Again, it became his own composition because of the changes he made.” Yesudas was supposed to sing the song. Kamal used to “sing track” a lot those days, the equivalent of a temp track which would then be dubbed over by a Yesudas or an SPB – and because Kamal couldn’t always wait for their dates in order to have the finished song available during the shooting, he’d sing track and take the song along. So Kamal told Ilayaraja that he’d sing track for Sundari neeyum, but Ilayaraja insisted that he sing the final song.
Then there was this time they were watching the Oscars, and a group (or maybe an individual; Kamal Haasan didn’t seem too sure about this) gave this performance where they beat their chests and sang. Kamal said he wanted something like that for Aboorva Sagotharargal. He got it. Bababa… Bababari… Pudhu maapillaikku…
I asked him if he could single out a song he had to sing that was tough, more challenging than the others. But he refused to bite. He simply said, “The truth is that they all gave me easy songs. All my music directors have been kind to me. Raja especially saw to it that his songs were crafted around my capability.”
***
When I asked Kamal Haasan what kind of music he listened to, outside of work, he said, “Pretty much anything that comes my way – even dubstep, which [Gautami’s daughter] Subbulakshmi introduced me to.” He said he was most fond of neoclassical music, and he named the composer Alex North, who veered away from the traditional orchestral approach prevalent in Hollywood and incorporated other elements – jazz, for instance, in his score for A Streetcar Named Desire. (North went on to compose for well-regarded films like Spartacus and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) “You can see those influences in my films,” Kamal Haasan said, “right from Rajapaarvai.” He then spoke about an “extraordinary neoclassical score,” a Hiranya Vadham kind of piece, which Ghibran has composed for the soon-to-be-released Uthama Villain.
“I am not a great fan of songs being part of the film, unless it’s a musical,” he said. “I think it’s high time for a bifurcation between music and cinema. It’s such a nuisance when we bring in songs. We have trained the audience like that. It takes a long time to make the audience understand that too much fried food is bad for you. They listen only if the doctor tells them. But now that the portion sizes have become small, they’ve begun to understand.”
***
We then spoke about his writing, and Kamal Haasan went into a flashback to when he must have been around sixteen. He and his brothers were waiting for their mother to serve them dosais, and Charuhasan, on the spot, composed and sang this pastiche based on the tune of Vettri meedhu vettri vandhu ennai serum, the popular MGR song from the 1970 film Thedi Vandha Maappillai.
Dosai meedhu dosai vandhu ennai serum
Adhai vaarthu thandha perumai ellam unnai serum
Idli-oda chutney thandha annai allavo
Idhu oosugindra dosai enbadhu unmai allavo.
This is impossible to translate with its flavour intact, but the point Kamal Haasan was making was that, as with music, writing too was all around him in that household. “Charu anna would be composing these funny lines and singing them to the tunes of the latest Tamil film songs. Much later, RC Sakthi made me write. My friend Puviarasu made me write. Great poets like Gnanakoothan encouraged me to write.” Even Raghu Rai could be added to that list, for Kamal Haasan said that poetry and photography are very important hobbies that a screenwriter should have, because they make you think of succinct ways of saying what you have to say. “I’m a great fan of Raghu Rai. Each photograph of his tells you a whole story. A little higher up, a different angle, and it’s a whole new story.”
RC Sakthi, who would go on to direct films like Dharma Yudhdham and Sirai, told Kamal, very early in their association, “You are a screenwriter.” He thrust a 40-page notebook in Kamal’s hand and told his friend to start writing his screenplay. This was around 1970-71. Kamal started writing something called Ninaivugal, for a short film. Sakthi liked it and asked Kamal to join him as co-writer on Unarchigal, a film he was planning about the sexual misadventures of a teenager. Kamal, who would play this protagonist, came up with the title. The film was supposed to be a quickie, released in 1972. But it got embroiled with the censor board over its content, which was fairly explicit for the time. The 1972 roster of the Tamil film industry included Agathiyar, Dheivam, Annai Abirami and Sakthi Leelai. The story of a teenager who contracts a sexually transmitted disease must have been a bit of a stretch. Unarchigal, finally, made it to the screens in 1976.
***
Kamal and RC Sakthi wrote a lot of screenplays. None of them were made into films. “We fumbled,” Kamal Haasan told me. “I think I became better due to my close association with Ananthu.” Ananthu was a screenwriter, rapacious world cinema buff, and a close associate of K Balachander, and his contribution to Kamal’s career is well-known. Hey Ram, in fact, opens with the dedication: “Dear Ananthu Saab, thank you for directing me towards this direction.” Ananthu was the one who began to tell Kamal about the rules of screenwriting. Kamal discovered the French film critic André Bazin, the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. “I became a great fan of Trumbo without knowing who he was.”
Kamal, with similar-minded friends, used to watch every foreign film that came his way, mostly through film festivals. He liked Bergman’s The Touch very much. And The Voyeur, with Marcello Mastroianni and Virni Lisi. And Antonioni’s The Passenger. And Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy. And Arthur Penn’s Alice’s Restaurant. “All these films affected us,” Kamal Haasan said. “We started picking up stuff.” They would keep talking about these films, and they began to be regarded as “Anglo-Indian” by the local industry. Among the many people to whom Kamal told the stories he had in his head was Balu Mahendra. “Those guys were working in the European format.”
I asked Kamal Haasan to point out some of the “stuff” he’d picked up from these films. He thought for a while and mentioned the tracking shots in the early portions of Guna. He said he was a great fan of Max Ophüls, the legendary German filmmaker who made The Earrings of Madame de… and who was known for complex tracking shots. Then he smiled and said, “We can use these ideas, at most, in a scene or two. Our films can’t take much more. If you bring these ideas in wholesale, then you’ll become like John Abraham, who was ostracised and kept outside the commercial sector.” He was referring to the Malayalam filmmaker known for avant-garde works like Agraharathil Kazhuthai and Amma Ariyan. “That’s a good thing actually, that’s a great state to be in. But it’s a rather lonely and dire state for a filmmaker.”
***
The story of Kamal Haasan as a dancer begins when Kamal was twelve, a time his mother thought that he would be thrown out of school, the third one he was admitted in. One evening, she took him to a Kuchipudi recital in Museum Theatre. The boy, who’d grown up with Bharatanatyam, was fascinated. Kamal Haasan told me, “I think it was the exotic form of somebody dancing on a plate.” After the performance, while waiting for the bus at the stop on Pantheon Road, Kamal’s mother asked him if he’d liked the performance. He asked her why there was no alarippu. She explained to him the difference between the dance forms. Suddenly he told her he wanted to learn dance. She said they’d talk about it in the morning.
The next morning, Kamal woke up, brushed his teeth, wiped his face on her pallu, and told her again that he wanted to learn dance. She asked him if he was sure. He was. She thought about it. She didn’t want to send him to classes where he’d have to stand in a queue. She wanted private tuitions from someone she could afford. This turned out to be MS Natarajan. He was into theatre, an actor and a fan of ‘Sivaji’ Ganesan, but he had also trained in the same school as Kamal’s sister, the Pandanallur bani. “He was not a teacher in the strict sense,” Kamal Haasan said, “but he had a repertoire that could help young children get acquainted with dance.” Classes began. But they were at Ashok Nagar, and Kamal’s mother felt that the boy was travelling too far from their Eldams Road home. The first solution was to shift the classes to the large hall at home. Then Natarajan told Kamal’s mother, “Your son is learning very well. If I could get a small place to stay in your house with my wife, I could be on attendance at any time.” Kamal Haasan smiled at the memory. “He was right, because I was totally neglecting school. I was always in the dance class. And it had nothing to do with all the girls in the class.”
***
One day, when Kamal was about 14, Natarajan said he’d run out of things to teach. He said it was time for an arangetram. The event occurred at Rasika Ranjani Sabha, and it was attended by the poet and writer Soundara Kailasam, Tamil Arasu Kazhagam founder Ma Po Sivagnanam and TK Shanmugam. Given Kamal Haasan’s religious views today (rather, the lack of them), I asked him if he offered the customary prayer to the stage. He said he did. He wasn’t a rationalist then. He used to pray for two hours daily, from the time he was seven. He was one of the few kids who could recite the Manisha Panchakam, a set of shlokas composed by Adi Shankara. In the late 1960s, if you walked by Eldams Road at 6:30 in the morning, you could have heard his voice.
After the arangetram, Kamal wanted to learn more, and as Natarajan knew of Kamal’s earlier interest in Kuchipudi, he brought in Guru Nataraja Ramakrishna, who later served as Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Sangeet Natak Akademi. Then, when these teachers and their students were invited by the Maharashtra police to perform in a series of shows across the state, they decided that some Kathak was needed in the mix – a Kathak instructor named Kulkarni was brought in from Kolhapur. So, at one point, there were three teachers in that Eldams Road home – much to the consternation of Kamal’s sister, who worried that this mix of styles would amount to Oriental Dancing – training dancers from 7 am to 7 pm, every day. Kamal would dance for some six to seven hours, every day. Kamal Haasan said, “This was a vibrant school. It was not classy like Kalakshetra. I wish we could have had all that, but this is what we could afford.”
The troupe completed rehearsals and went to Maharashtra. They performed about 30 shows, staying in police colonies and touring in a police bus. During the show at Sholapur, there was an accident. An oil lamp was removed from the stage, and a little slick of oil was left behind. Kamal had to do “this slightly acrobatic peacock dance,” which involved splits. Kamal Haasan said wryly, “It was about a hunter and a peacock and the peacock died that day.” It was a trabecular fracture of the left patella, and it left him limping. But according to the contract he had to be on stage, so the last few days, he played the chenda.
When he returned home, he was told he couldn’t dance anymore. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have much of an education. Just to tease his mother , who was complaining about his not doing anything, he worked as a barber for a week in Ambuli Saloon, in front of his house. (This part doesn’t just sound like a screenplay. Many years later, this is what his character would end up doing in Varumayin Niram Sivappu.) They wouldn’t let him cut hair, but shaving was okay. Kamal Haasan said, “All my moustaches, including the one for Virumaandi, were shaped by me.”
Eventually, Kamal landed a small assignment. The Christian Arts and Communications Centre, just across his house, wanted someone to help with the choreography for a dance drama that would disperse the word of Christ through Bharatanatyam. There, Kamal met K Thangappan, a student of Jaishankar Master, the choreographer of Chandralekha. His assistant – Sundaram, Prabhu Dheva’s father – had left to pursue an independent career, so he was looking for a replacement. “I thought I’d made it,” Kamal Haasan said. “I was in films.” But he wasn’t interested in acting – only dancing. And as Thangappan had trained under Guru Gopinath, the famous Kathakali exponent, another style found its way into Kamal’s repertoire. (It was a small world. Kamal, as a child actor, had worked with Guru Gopinath’s daughter in the Malayalam film Kannum Karalum.) Kamal Haasan spoke of the dance sequence in Nizhal Nijamaagiradhu [clip below; 00:30 onwards], where his character slips into the heroine’s class (she’s a dance teacher) and proceeds to give an impromptu performance that leaves her stunned. “The reason that dance was so masculine was because of Thangappan master’s training, because of the Kathakali style.”
***
The same year, 1978, Kamal was seen in a more famous dance sequence – in the Ennadi Meenatchi number in Ilamai Oonjaladugiradhu. Looking like a scrawny Elvis in all-white clothes bisected by a belt buckle the size of an infant’s head, he was a wiry stage presence, flailing his arms and kicking the air. That was after he picked up a bit of karate under a teacher named Kuppuswamy. Kamal Haasan said, “When I was 16, I felt I might be left with some effeminacy because of all the dancing. I was so full of classical dance that I wanted to get away and do something else.” His friend Shekhar was a karate champ, working with Kuppuswamy. Just like Kamal was learning dance in his house, Shekhar was learning karate in his – on the terrace. “We’d practice karate for six-seven hours every day, and that changed my dancing style too. The stance of karate came into my dance. If you see Ennadi Meenatchi, you can make out that I have leant karate as well as dance.” Meanwhile, Anglo-Indian friends in Egmore taught him the fox trot.
***
This is why Kamal Haasan likes to say, despite what viewers of Sagara Sangamam/Salangai Oli may think, that he is not trained in the traditional classical format. He said, “I’m like a vaudeville artist rather than a Kalakshetra or a Trinity College kind of person. At first, I was very diffident about the kind of groups I interacted with, because it was not the way my sister trained. It was not ‘pure.’ But my experience was very rich and later on I found that what I did was not something to be ashamed of.” I asked him what drove him to all these different forms of dance. He said he was looking for something, a more versatile medium, and he found it in cinema. “I had all this creativity, but I was looking for a way to express it, and cinema became the fulcrum with which I could lift all this weight. When classical singers or dancers look at cinema with derision, I have half a heart to tell them that they’re wrong. They’re losing a platform.”
He spoke some more about Sagara Sangamam. He recalled the response of dance teachers who told him that this film had done to dance what they had done through their lives. “It was very touching,” he said. “But that has more to do with the medium. You should also give credit to Vyjayanthimala and Kumari Kamala. In their time, dance was seen as a feminine domain. I brought it to the masculine domain. Unfortunately, I was the only ambassador at the time.” I asked him why films have stopped showcasing the classical arts. He said, “I think it’s simply an attitude, because it has to be sponsored. The sponsors – be it a king or a producer or the Britannia biscuit company – are either not interested or ill-informed. They all focus on their product. They have no social or aesthetic commitment.”
He spoke a lot about Thangappan Master. “I’ve never seen someone so large-hearted. Even when he was choreographing, he’d give the camera to [RC] Sakthi and me and say, ‘We’re running out of time, we’re waiting for artists, I have to be here, you guys take the camera, go shoot the rest of the song and bring it back.’ It was all very touching and very exhilarating for us.” I asked him if he remembered the first song he choreographed. He spoke about choreographing a song for Akinneni Nageswara Rao in Sreemanthudu, which was released in 1971. “I met him on his 90th birthday. He remembered me as his dance assistant. We were both rationalists. He saw me not bowing to the arati. He asked me, ‘Are you a Muslim?’ I said no. He said, ‘Then why are you not praying?’ I said I don’t believe in it. I’m an atheist. He said, ‘Well, you’ve got a friend in me.’” Kamal Haasan also spoke about the comedian Raj Babu, whom he called the counterpart of Nagesh in Telugu. “He was very fond of me. He said you’re wasting time here. You’re going to become an actor. I have composed songs for him too. But I don’t really remember the first song.”
***
After Kamal became a dance assistant, the late dance master Raghuram became an acquaintance. Raghuram was related to Padma Subrahmanyam – whom Kamal had fallen for when he saw her dance on stage; “I fell in love with a lady I didn’t even know” is how he put it – and when Kamal found out about this, he knelt in front of Raghuram and said, with a wink in his eye (or maybe without one), “I want to marry your aunt.” He settled for learning her style of dance instead. Kamal Haasan said, “I don’t know if he was bluffing or if he really learnt from her, but he used to teach me. We were from different styles, and so it was sort of an exchange of ideas.”
K Balachander did not care for dancing in films. He did not care for choreographers. Thangappan Master was hired for Sollathaan Ninaikkiren, but Balachander did not like what Kamal Haasan called “the traditional cinema dance master.” He wanted someone young, and so Kamal Haasan brought in Raghuram. Balachander asked them to partner up for the choreography. They became co-choreographers for films like K Balachander’s Avargal, whose title cards mention that the mock-cricket match was “staged by Kamalahasan and Raghuraman.” Kamal Haasan said, “Raghu was really talented. He was working with Chopra Master. His training was a superior to mine because he had a great teacher. When we got together, we formed a new style, a bit of Padma Subrahmanyam, a bit of Kolhapuri Kathak, all my influences. So our compositions looked very different.”
They worked together on many films, including Hindi films like Ek Duuje Ke Liye. Kamal Haasan said that he had a hand in choreographing most of his dances onscreen, even if he wasn’t credited. After the release of Avargal, Raghuram got married. Kamal and he were still choreographing dances together, but around the time of [the 1978 Malayalam film] Madanolsavam, Kamal said he didn’t need this title. “It was more useful for him, as I had already made it. I was a star in Kerala.”
We spoke about his dances in the films of the late seventies and the early eighties, when it was practically signed into his contract that a film that featured him would also feature a dance by him. Unakenna mele ninraai in Simla Special. Kaamanukku Kaaman in Uruvangal Maaralaam. Even the bastardisation of Yadhuvamsa Sudhambudhi Chandra in Sanam Teri Kasam. “That’s not classical,” Kamal Haasan said. “That’s a sell-out, he said. “That’s what people like my sister didn’t like.” Then came Sagara Sangamam. Kamal and RC Sakthi wanted to make a film on a similar subject, about a dancer who was an alcoholic. They even had a name for it: Anupallavi. But when K Viswanath came calling, Kamal felt he had to do the film, especially as it was from the creator of Shankarabharanam.
On the sets of Sagara Sangamam, Kamal’s training restarted. Gopi Krishna was one of the choreographers, and he insisted that Kamal train for at least a month. Kamal was one of the top stars of the time, doing multiple shifts, but he had to find the time. “It was actually a great sacrifice from my side,” Kamal Haasan said, but it was worth it. The dance sequence that resulted, for the song Naadha Vinodhamu, became one of the film’s highlights. The other dances, including the “dance of rage” that predated the ones in Yash Chopra’s films, were composed by Kamal and Raghuram. I asked him if he considered the dances in this film “pure dances.” He said, “But even in the film it is called Bhaarat Natyam. That was my constant defence against the question: ‘What style is your dance’? It’s better than calling it Oriental Dance, which is a very derogatory term coined by the British.”
Over the years, Kamal Haasan’s cinema has featured not just dance but other arts as well. There was street theatre in Anbe Sivam, leather puppetry in Dasavatharam, and now Uthama Villain will showcase theyyam and villu pattu and kalari and koothu (“not theru koothu, as it has been brought down to, but the traditional form”) and even Bharatanatyam (“where the teacher used to dance with the disciple; it’s only after Rukmani Devi Arundale that the nattuvangam person sat down”). Kamal Haasan said the film wasn’t so much dance-based as folk-art based, and added, “A purist will not accept this form, even in folk arts.” He’s done an attakalari performance for the film, and he’s written the lyrics for this piece. “It’s difficult because you have to maintain grace with that huge headgear. It’s like dancing kathakali with a kavadi.”
He took out his phone and showed me picture of him in the theyyam makeup of the Narasimha avatar. I asked him if this was his way of enriching cinema. “Absolutely,” he said. “I am at this opportune position. I am trying to bring a lot of great talented people into this cinema, which is very versatile and accommodating. I want to give everything I have to this medium.”
Concluded
* Correction: This sentence has been amended. Earlier, it read: “It’s an association that lasted up to the mid-1990s, roughly, till which point the non-Ilayaraja films were relatively rare.”
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2014 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Karthik
August 14, 2014
Awesome read…hoping for some anecdotes of Kamal with Ilayaraja..
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Ajay
August 14, 2014
Wow!You talking to Kamal and writing about it is something a lot of people including me have been waiting for and Part 1 doesn’t disappoint at all.Leaving out films and talking about music,only you can come up with such a variation.
But why the long delay in posting this,April to August ?
Thank you.Looking forward to the continuation of the write up.
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apala
August 14, 2014
BRangan,
You talked to God of Arts and did not reveal that to the rest of less-fortunate mortals for almost 5 months, huh?
Great…….Excited……Bring on more of it, sir!
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Prakash
August 14, 2014
Excellent…
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ramitbajaj01
August 14, 2014
I think it’s possible that this article was written long way back, but it’s only now that The Hindu has given it some space.
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KayKay
August 14, 2014
Kamal learnt classical music from Dr. Balamuralikrishna??????
B, that gives me the same thrill of discovery as when I first learnt Alexander The Great was tutored by Aristotle!
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Prakash Ram
August 14, 2014
Hmm… Can we look forward to a book titled “Conversations with Kamal Hassan”, that would simply be amazing.
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Padhma
August 14, 2014
I totally second Prakash Ram on “Conversations with Kamal”. Please BR, please…..
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Pady Srini
August 15, 2014
+1 for the book. High time someone wrote Kamal’s interviews. Maybe you already are in the process…wink wink…
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kums
August 15, 2014
tamil serial madhiri ‘thodarum’ potutengale 😐
expecting the next post !
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Ravi K
August 15, 2014
^ Yes, I would buy that book in a heartbeat.
Can you explain the difference between a keerthanai and a geetham?
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sachita
August 15, 2014
i am thinking this is a precursor to “conversations with kamal”. (a different title though) I know one thing for sure – the book is going to huge in terms of sheer size. waiting eagerly now.
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Anu Warrier
August 15, 2014
I third Prakash – ‘Conversations with Kamal’ please!
Bragging rights: I did have the good fortune of interviewing him on the sets of Apporva Sahodargal. He was fascinating to talk to.
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prasanth
August 15, 2014
@ Ravi K. Geethams are beginner songs. They are short, melodies are simple, lyrics are simple, etc, it’s like a children’s song. Keerthanais are more complex songs, usually have complex structure (pallavi, anupallavi, charanam, swaras, etc), the melodies usually have complex sangathis/variations, more lyrics to memorize, etc.
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cl
August 15, 2014
I like this style of writing…short sentences when writing about the past/memories and long ones for the present…makes it more effective. Like all others here .. eagerly looking forward to the next post 🙂
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venkatesh
August 15, 2014
This is the gold-dust of interviews. This man deserves a knowledge able and erudite interviewer who just lets him speak.
Bravo BR.
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S
August 15, 2014
Underwhelmed by what he has to say – Name dropping,
as always …
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brangan
August 15, 2014
Ajay: It’s because the relaunch of the section that this series was supposed to kick off — Friday Review — kept getting postponed. But that turned out to be good, in a way, as I was able to meet him again and talk about a lot more.
venkatesh: who just lets him speak
Saar, saar… ippidi dismiss pannitteengale. An interview isn’t just about who’s doing the talking. It’s also about who’s doing the asking, the guiding, the reminding, the gently steering back to course when over-meandering happens 🙂
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Rahini David
August 15, 2014
BR: surely venkatesh meant it as a compliment. Letting the interviewee speak is the greatest thing you can do. The one in which you were the interviewee had that problem. The questions were longer than your answers. Is it because you were interviewed by 3 people?
And a very relevant article. And did you read Lynn Barber’s book?http://seemagoswami.blogspot.in/2014/07/a-question-of-answers.html
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vijay
August 16, 2014
Some of this is old news. There was a program 2 years back on Vijay(or Jaya) TV (there must be a youtube link)where BMK was on video screen asking Kamal to sing something he taught and Kamal obliged. It was a program focused on Kamal’s singing aspects
Letting the interviewee “just speak” isn’t easy. Just ask those who have been interviewed by Suhasini.
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brangan
August 18, 2014
Rahini David: Thanks for the link. I agree with most of it, but not with the “questions should be shorter than answers” rule.
There are two parts to any communication — what’s said and what’s unsaid. And if an interviewee doesn’t answer a particular question to the extent the question would appear to demand, then the “unsaid” part becomes more interesting. i.e. Is he uncomfortable answering this question? Is he protecting someone? Is he hiding something? And so on…
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bhagiam murali
August 18, 2014
I stil remember the days in Hindu High School while coming from the school, in the school bus when he sits in the front row behind left to driver. Sitting quietly with the rosy cheeks and rich repertoire seldom had I thought he would shine as multi facet personality….He use to get down at Eldams Road and at Kalathy kadai at Mylapore…’God’ bless…..nay virtue bless him…..
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venkatesh
August 20, 2014
BR: “Saar, saar… ippidi dismiss pannitteengale.”
No , no , au contraire a lot of interviewers don’t let the interviewee complete the thought or allow segues or join 2 distinct phases , i could go on.
For someone like Kamal Haasan who has been in the industry for over 50 years and worked with virtually everyone , he needs someone like you to interview him.
An example of a really bad interview with Kamal Haasan:
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prakashswamy
August 21, 2014
When are you writing the legend’s biography Rangan – authorized or not? It’ll be a sellout, no doubt!
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Nagaraj
August 22, 2014
Do you have a video or audio recording of these meetings? If yes, would you be comfortable posting them online? Thanks, Nagaraj.
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jyothsna
August 22, 2014
very interesting! an all new image of Kamal!
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silverscreenindia
August 22, 2014
Lovely interview.
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abvblogger
August 28, 2014
@Rahini David, cool link. This made me chuckle: “celebrity interviewer’ is someone like Lynn Barber, an interviewer who talks to celebrities. In India, alas, a ‘celebrity interviewer’ is an interviewer who thinks that he/she is a celebrity”
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Shankar
August 28, 2014
Baddy, what you said about the two classic songs getting recorded in the same day is amazing…in retrospect, I’m not surprised too much though. Raja’s hallmark is the spontaneity in composing, how music seems to flow after a situation is described by the director, as Mani said. So, to me, it’s not surprising that he just went with his gut in choosing the singer without any major pre-planning. Of course, this also leads sometimes to his choice of “not the right singer for the song” situations but I can understand how this man operates. When it comes to the music itself, he is not about any major planning, tinkering, evolving the tune etc….it’s sheer spontaneity! That takes a certain kind of genius! 🙂
PS: Before any flame-wars erupt, let me clarify that I don’t prescribe that this is only way it should be done! 🙂
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brangan
August 28, 2014
Shankar: Sometimes, you get *too* defensive. Idhula enna scope for flame wars? Fact is fact no? 🙂
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Kiruba
August 28, 2014
what a great series this is turning out to be! Please don’t end it anytime soon.
btw, a doubt I’ve carried for sometime about this ‘sanyasa mantra’.. why does he sing triguna rahitam (instead of gagana sadrusham as in the slokam) in the second line? Is it of some significance to the sequence? I mean, I can’t believe they were so careless…
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venkatesh
August 28, 2014
Oh my word ; this is turning out to be an extraordinary article.
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Anuja
August 28, 2014
This is so great! KH had the honour of lying down on Mylapore Gowriammal’s lap! That lucky stiff!! There are so many yummy nuggets in there! Loved the series with Vikram as well. But I don’t understand why BR has to take a leaf out of George RR Martin’s book and feed us bite sized appetizers, stoking the hunger pangs, and then leave us begging for more.
Lets say it together… We hate installments, we want to read the entire thing now!!!!
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brangan
August 28, 2014
Anuja: In the first issue, they had space for a 1500 word piece.
The choice was between cutting the whole thing down to 1500 words — or have it in these, as you call it, bite-size installments. (These run about 500-600 words, which is about the size oif a typical article.)
There’s a lot of interesting stuff and I wanted breathing space, so I chose the latter. Because I thought once it’s all done, it’ll make a nice, comprehensive essay — ideally, you should wait for the end and read the whole thing.
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Maya
August 29, 2014
If this doesn’t get unbridled appreciation for Kamal, then what will! Best conversation with a filmstar ever.
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Shankar
August 29, 2014
Baddy, when flame wars erupt, logic, reason, fact all go out of the window. I just want a good discussion, have no energy and interest for mud slinging. Each to his own muse, da! 🙂
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sai16vicky
September 4, 2014
Talking about KB sitting with the music director, I remember Writer Sujatha sharing an anecdote during a composing session of “Ninaithalae Inikkum”. KB kinda convinced him to attend telling that it would be entertaining to watch Kannadasan and MSV composing. Sujatha goes on to say that he was astonished that Kannadasan was able to come up with the lyrics as soon as MSV finished singing the tune. Post the session, Sujatha asked KD how this spontaneity was possible and KD gave an interesting reply – “Its not about my talent. Its about the beauty of the Tamil Language. For instance, take Seetha – how many names she has got – Janaki(NerNirai), Janaka, Mythili, Vaidehi(NerNerNer if I remember), etc. This diversity leads to the instant placement of words according to the tune”. I searched in the internet for this(it was published in Ananda Vikatan I guess) but couldn’t find one.
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KP
September 4, 2014
” This, I’m beginning to realise, was the best part of these interviews, his impromptu launches into song “.
If only the videos inserted were not the original songs from youtube but his impromptu singing, you did not record it on your phone for yourself????
-KP
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Deepak
September 5, 2014
About the opening paragraph of the 4th part – it is quite well known that Kamal has always been very involved in the making of any movie he acts in (story discussion, direction, cinematography, song situation narration to Ilayaraja etc.) – watch making of Guna songs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuFvZ0x2GO8 , a movie where he was “not” the director, ie; Kamal is much more than just an actor, even during his early stardom days (late 70s/early 80s). It may even be fair to say that Kamal has ghost directed a lot of “his” movies in 80s and 90s before officially venturing into that in the 2000s.
Also, another reason could be that he is a producer as well (RKFI), and almost all RKFI films had Ilaiyaraaja as the composer, so maybe there is nothing strange about the “I” in his tone 🙂
I am bit surprised you could not interpret it this way, and I felt that your writing was reductive, reducing his involvement to “oh maybe this is how it was in those days”
” It’s an association that lasted up to the mid-1990s, roughly”
hmmm, what about Hey Ram, Kamal’s magnum opus as an actor, director and producer, and Ilaiyaraaja’s brilliant work for the movie, which came out in 2000. Their association lasted all the way till Mumbai Express, which came out in 2005, which is almost a decade after mid-1990s, “roughly” 🙂 – sorry had to point it out as I felt you were way off the mark here.
Also, ” till which point the non-Ilaiyaraaja films were relatively rare” seems out of place and frankly, unwarranted, and not to mention, the inaccurate first part of that sentence.
But apart from these, I really like this series, thanks for documenting Kamal’s insights, and trying to add a few of your own, and looking forward to the rest of it.
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brangan
September 5, 2014
KP: No, these were spur-of-the-moment things and you cannot distract a subject or make him conscious by pulling out your phone and beginning to record. The idea is to remain as “invisible” as possible, and not interrupt the flow of the whole thing. Of course, I have it all on my Dictaphones.
Deepak: Okay, that was my bad. Have amended it, thanks. What I should have written is something like this…
It’s a collaboration that flourished up to the mid-1990s, roughly — till which point the non-Ilayaraja films were relatively rare.
Because after the mid-1990s, beginning with “Nammavar”, the Raja films were quite rare (bolded below; I have included some earlier films too, for contrast):
Thevar Magan, Maharasan, Kalaignan, Mahanadhi , Magalir Mattum, Nammavar… Sathi Leelavathi… Subha Sankalpam, Kuruthipunal, Indian, Avvai Shanmugi, Chachi 420, Kaathala Kaathala, Hey Ram, Thenali, Aalavandhan, Pammal K Sambandham, Panchatantiram, Anbe Sivam, Virumaandi, Vasool Raja, MBBS, Mumbai XPress, Rama Shama Bhama, Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, Dasavathaaram, Unnaipol Oruvan, Manmadhan Ambu, Vishwaroopam…
But I do stand by the second part of the sentence:
till which point the non-Ilaiyaraaja films were relatively rare…
Apart from the odd “Mangamma Sabadham-s” here and there, he was very much with Raja till the mid-1990s, wasn’t he? Or am I missing something?
About the opening para, in those days Kamal wasn’t the one-film-at-a-time type. He was a very, very busy star, shuttling between studios and stuff, and hence the surprise that he found the time to sit in on recordings — except for his own productions like “Rajapaarvai.” By the time “Guna” happened, of course, he was concentrating on all aspects of a film. But till the “Nayakan” timeframe, approximately, he was very much a gun for hire. That’s where I was going.
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Yossarian
September 5, 2014
@BR – Wow, what a series this is turning out to be, I wish this goes on till the end of the year 🙂
@Deepak – You are way off in interpreting this line “It’s an association that lasted up to the mid-1990s, roughly, till which point the non-Ilayaraja films were relatively rare”
– Hey Ram and Mumbai Express were 2 films out of 10 odd that had Raja composing the music, as opposed to the period b/w 16 Vaiyathinile and Sathi Leelavathi where Raja composed for more than 85% of his movies. So yes, it was a relatively rare phenomenon to find a non-Raja composed Kamal movie during that period and not so rare after mid-1990’s. I don’t see where the inaccuracy is and worse still what is unwarranted about it 🙂
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Deepak
September 5, 2014
Hi BR, thanks for the reply.
Again, reg the opening para, I understand why you may have felt it was odd, but I if I understand correctly, your interpretation of Kamal is that he had two distinct phases – the gun-for-hire (as you put it) star phase and the complete writer/director/actor package that he is today.
Mine is slightly different – I see Kamal as a writer/director first and an actor second, and that he kinda leveraged his position as a top star to go back to his roots eventually.
Even in his “gun-for-hire” phase, Kamal was very involved in various aspects of the movie making – there are many anecdotes of him giving inputs to the cinematographer/music director etc – there was an article in The Hindu about Nayagan, where Kamal was reminiscing the on-set discussions he’d had with Mani Ratnam – also, lets not forget that he was an assistant director first before he became an actor (after the child actor phase) – he even mentioned in some audio launch function that that’s how he met Bharathiraja (who was also an assistant director at that time it seems).
And for Rajapaarvai (1981), he was officially credited as a screenplay writer.
@Yossarian – there was also Virumaandi in 2003, and again, if you take Kamal the ‘actor’ between 95-2005, sure, very few movies where Raja was the composer, but if you take Kamal the director it is 100% 🙂 (if you consider Aalavandhan as ghost directed by him, then it becomes 3/4 which is still 75% 🙂 ) – IIRC, Kamal did a bunch of those comedy movies in early 2000s after the setback due to Hey Ram/Marudhanayagam etc. where he was in cruise control mode and recovering financially.
I guess the point I was trying to make was that from 80s to 2005, Kamal almost consistently chose Raaja for movies he was producing/directing/ghost directing/seriously involved in.
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venkatesh
September 5, 2014
Am i the only one who thinks he should do one of those “gun for hire” roles with the younger directors of now ?
Something where the sensibility is that of a Kartik Subbaraj or a Nalan Kumarasamy and he is in there as a gun for hire and not even the main Gun for Hire. It would completely jolt the system.
BR: Excellent excellent series and i am in the minority here i think but i love the bite sized instalments.
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KP
September 5, 2014
, I have it all on my Dictaphones.
– soundcloud 🙂 .
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brangan
September 5, 2014
Deepak: But wasn’t Raja the rebound choice for “Hey Ram”? I know it’s shocking that Kamal didn’t think of him in the first place, but given that he was the second choice kind of reaffirms my contention about the post -1990s working relationship between the two, however great the personal relationship may have been.
venkatesh: The way I look at this is as ONE long article that, due to space reasons in the newspaper, has had to be chopped into installments. Ideally, I’d have liked to have it all in one go, but better this than an edited-down piece 🙂
KP: Again, I’d have to ask permission. You can’t go about randomly posting bits from interview sessions 🙂 A lot of people have asked me about the Mani Ratnam sessions too (for the book).
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MI
September 5, 2014
I don’t have the source now. But I remember Kamal saying that he chose L.Subramaniam for commercial reasons (he wanted to make Hey Ram as an international film and thought having L.S as a music director will be a selling point abroad). When that didn’t work out, he came to Ilayaraja, who graciously agreed to score the music to match the already shot scenes.
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Santosh Kumar T K
September 5, 2014
please watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8fz_NVcOl8
at ~1.35 he goes off “mruthi lona mugisina….” and he actually sounds like Balamuralikrishna here. I have always felt that. Now when I read his association with the master, I justify my connection in *hindsight.* 🙂
PS: Kamal Haasan sounds divine, just divine in Telugu. I would have loved to see all contemporary Haasan movies that I have loved made directly in Telugu. The fact that he spoke Telugu in Drohi (Kuruthipunal) and was not dubbed for by SPB in a dubbed version takes it a few notches higher in my head.
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venkatesh
September 5, 2014
BR: I am clearly in the minority but i prefer it like this – bite-sized instalments – gives it time to percolate in the system and then of course there is the nail biting – what comes next 🙂
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Hari
September 8, 2014
Simla Speical (MSV) is the last tamil or telegu movie in 80’s, where Kamal featured and MD is not Raja. Great interview. It is amazing how you can still bring a new flavor from Kamal who had been interviewed to the death covering all aspects of his career.
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brangan
September 8, 2014
Hari: Not really. There was “Sattam” (the K Balaji films didn’t use Raja), the surreal “Pagadai Pannirandu”, the “Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki” remake “Mangamma Sabadham”…
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MANK
September 8, 2014
Brangan, i wonder whether Kamal ever considered composing music for any of his films. Also i heard that Kamal originally wanted satyajit Ray to compose music for Pushpak. I wish you could have published the whole article at one go. This makes discussion on this piece very difficult.Any way better like this than an abridged version.
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Hari
September 9, 2014
Rangan, You are right. For some reason, I thought Mangamma sabadham was a 1980’s film with Madahavi in it). Yes, also Pushpak in 80’s, LV composed the BGM. For some reason, after guna in early 90’s Kamal started trying out other composers. May be you should ask him if there are any reasons behind it.
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Vishy
September 12, 2014
Being a hardcore fan of both KH and Raja, was eagerly waiting for Part 4, but somehow missed and read it when I saw you released Part 5. Great article!
Its kind of being in a wonderland or pure exhilaration when you hear/read two of your most favorite artists talk about each other and the mutual respect and admiration they have for each other.
I think this is evident even from Raja’s interview/speech when he talks about KH.
I read somewhere that Raja asked Kamal to sing one of his compositions (with just 30 minutes notice) when he didn’t like the way the singer was performing in last year’s recording of Happi. That in itself is a tribute to KH’s talent and the respect Raja has for KH.
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Ram Murali
September 12, 2014
One thing that I have always had an issue with Kamal, the screenwriter, is the derivative nature of his scripts…sometimes he takes inspiration and gives it his unique touches and the treatment works out really well…for instance, devar magan followed the godfather storyline in the loosest manner possible…but the village setting was so authentic and the treatment so Indian…whereas, for instance, the climax of raja paarvai was a shameless lift from the graduate…that’s what bugs me…to me the line between getting inspired and plagiarizing is not that thin! What say you? 🙂
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Rahini David
September 13, 2014
How many instalments are there? I am waiting for the last. To read at one go.
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brangan
September 13, 2014
Rahini David: I’d say about 4-5 more. Unless space frees up and they decide to carry bigger installments.
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Lakshman
September 15, 2014
Hope he has a few more things to say about Ghibran too. Composing music for 3 yet to be released Kamal films has to be the biggest achievement of any Tamil MD of late.
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Ram Murali
September 16, 2014
Any thoughts on the originality / derivative nature of Kamal, the writer? Just following up to see if you have a take on this issue since it’s something that really bugs me about Kamal, the writer, given how much I adore and respect Kamal, the actor and how original he is (I feel that despite the ‘inspirations’ he never copies Hollywood actors)
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brangan
September 17, 2014
Ram Murali: I don’t subscribe to the theory that originality has anything to do with the quality of a film or my perception of it. As for Kamal and Hollywood actors, you may want to check out Chaplin, Brando and Peter Sellers for guru-shishya examples. Again, not a problem in my book.
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Srinivas R
September 18, 2014
BR , I hope you had a chance to pick his brains about the tendency to include his pet themes in all his scripts i.e. things like communism , atheism, physics terminology etc. which sometimes comes across as forced. Also the balancing act between his high concept writing and the tamil movie must haves
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Ram Murali
September 19, 2014
Am glad to hear more about Ananthu…I remember reading an interview by Rudriah (AvaL Appadithan) way back and he mentioned how Ananthu helped shape the script, got Kamal and Rajni onboard and, if I remember, even suggested the title “Aval Appadithan”…
The note at the beginning of the Tamil version of “Hey Ram” sounds so much nicer than the “Ananthu Saab” thingie he mentioned (I guess for the Hindi version):
“Ingu thaan anaithumey…povadhenbadhu evvidam? umadhu nalla seedaruL…avargaL punaiyum kadhaigaLuL palugi vaazha vaazhthuven…andhamaru ananthanai.”
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Anand Govindarajan
September 26, 2014
BRangan, this article on KH is turning out to be very similar to how “Conversations with Mani Ratnam” shaped up. I cannot tell you, how glad I am to see this article. Any chance of a book coming out based on your conversations with KH?
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Shankar V
September 30, 2014
This is turning out to be an excellent and wonderful series. The reflections by Kamal seem most genuine and filled with nostalgia. He has really opened up to you and been devoid of the inhibitions that we usually get to see in his public appearances.
He is probably the best dancer Indian cinema has seen. I cannot imagine any other actor who can pull off a role like he did in Sagara Sangamam (Salangai Oli). Even as late as Tenali, he showed us how good he was at the art. He probably struggled a bit in Viswaroopam and avoided fast movements in that song. Otherwise, his dance was still adorable.
His family has allowed him to not go to school and learn the arts. A luxury not many people are likely to get 🙂
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CL
October 4, 2014
Part – 8 has not been posted this week 😦 . Next week ?
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brangan
October 4, 2014
CL: That’s because this series appears in the Friday supplement and there was no issue of The Hindu this Friday. (Holiday for Ayudha Pooja)
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Ram Murali
October 10, 2014
““I had all this creativity, but I was looking for a way to express it, and cinema became the fulcrum with which I could lift all this weight. “
–> Superb choice of words. But my mind goes back to your review of Anbe Sivam and how Kamal had so much to say but had no filters to speak of. So, everything from tsunami to thiruvalluvar found its way to the final script…your chapter on Nayagan captures this well with Mani’s example of how Kamal acted out the scene in the prostitution house and Mani had to tell him to do…well, nothing.
What do you think are Kamal’s best examples of reining himself in as a creator, yet displaying his talent?
I can think of Mahanadhi for sure. The pitch, if I could call it that, was so perfect.
Just curious what your picks are.
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brangan
October 10, 2014
Ram Murali: I think his “simpler” movies work better — films like “Aboorva Sagotharargal,” which aren’t heavy / topical / thematic / thesis-point-laden and yet have quite a few surprises under the surface. Now I like his heavier films too, but there’s a sense of visible strain there.
But I must say the man knows how to talk. Imagine coming up with that “fulcrum” analogy at the spur of the moment. It would have never occurred me so quickly… and I’m supposed to be the writer.
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reelorola
October 10, 2014
I just wish he liberates himself from this “I will always be the hero” or “I will impose my quirks and my ideology in the films I direct” syndrome.
Something like what Amitabh has done. Imagine the variety of roles and the scope for the genius actor.
Also wish he acts under these new crop of directors. Karthik Subbaraj, Vetrimaaran, Nalan Kumaraswamy, Balaji Tharaneetharan, Ameer, Bala etc directing Kamal Haasan..Waa!!
He was so wonderful under an expert director like GVM.
Just wish.. The Greatest actor we have should not be wasted like this. Just wonder why? I guess there is no one big enough around him to make him realise this.
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cl
October 16, 2014
‘Master of Arts’ – could not be more apt ! And thanks for those videos..they make this article much more riveting.
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Ram Murali
October 16, 2014
“I want to give everything I have to this medium.”
–> This is probably one of the most touching things that Kamal has ever said. People have used phrases like this to describe Kamal but coming from him, this statement has acquired a new dimension.
In a write-up on Ravi Shastri, I wrote the following as the first lines…
“Ravi Shastri maximized what God gave him,” said commentator Harsha Bhogle in an interview. It is perhaps the most perfect summation of a man who has polarized opinions like few other, yet was a vital, if underappreciated, cog in the Indian cricket wheel of the 1980s.
and this as the last line:
Shastri certainly maximized what God gave him. It is just sad that Indian cricket did not maximize Shastri for what he offered.
I am glad that despite commercial failures like Mahanadhi and Hey Ram, Tamil Cinema continues to “accommodate” and maybe even maximize Kamal’s talent…
I am trying to think who are some very good actors that Thamizh Cinema has under utilized…(whether it’s the choices they made or the choices that they were offered, it’s hard to say):
My top picks would be Parthiban, Sathyaraj (except for ’85-88 and his good films with Manivannan) and among actresses, Sneha.
Who would be your picks?
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venkatesh
October 16, 2014
Ram Murali : “My top picks would be Parthiban”
– oh I was suprised by what Parthiban did with KTVI – what an absolute blinder from him . Clearly an old dog can learn new tricks.
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Ram Murali
October 16, 2014
Venkatesh, I know! I am a HUGE fan of Parthiban…I even wrote about him in my blog (see link next to my name if interested)…I was delighted to see him bounce back as a director with KTVI…I was just thinking of Parthiban, the actor…
My fav three Parthiban performances are Pudhia Paadhai (1989), Swarnamukhi (1998) and Housefull (1999)…how long ago were those…:-(
even his cameos in the 90s were good…he was just about the only thing good in “Aravindan.” He also crackled in “Anthapuram.”
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Drunken Monkey
October 17, 2014
Kamal often mentions this… ‘Sivaji maadhiri oru Singathuku thayir saadham pottu konnutaanga. I am not gonna allow that happen to me.’
Considering films like MMKR, AS, mahanathi, hey ram, virumaandi and likes I completely agree it just can’t get any better.
But over the time, he has slowly turned into someone different. His ideas, interests and ambitions have changed drastically.
Looking at the his recent films, it looks like he’s very carefully preparing his own thayir saadham.
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aandthirtyeights
October 17, 2014
Reelorola: I think that’s a strange comment to make after reading this article. Kamal isn’t – and really doesn’t want to be – just an actor.
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Kutty
October 18, 2014
Now that it has concluded – thanks for bringing this to is! Wonderful to hear the more human side of people than just the actors/stars in them.
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N
October 18, 2014
Loved this series!
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brangan
October 18, 2014
Thanks all.
Was lovely doing this series. Especially because I was allowed to present it as a series. What happens usually is that you go out for an interview and come back with tons of material and then you’re given a word count — a measly 800 or 1000 or (if lucky) 1200. So that’s what I thought would happen here, and I thought that, as usual, I’d do the long version and put it up on the blog and then do a drastic edit for the paper. Luckily, they bought the idea of a series.
Of course not everything lends itself to instalments, but this is possibly one way longish features can be presented intact in papers, whose space for features is shrinking by the minute.
PS: These days, 800 words is considered “a lot.” Apparently readers don’t have the patience for more. 🙂
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Hari
October 20, 2014
Great series. Enjoyed reading it. I wish there were more time spent on his days as assistant dance master, some of the famous songs and artists he worked on, and as Thangappan was a top dance master in 70s. Regarding parthiban and talented people underused – Parthiban is a good director and some potential is still there to come out, his acting is just adequate,and one dimensional. Actors – Muthuraman ( Could have been the sanjeev kumar of Tamil), Raguvaran, Raj Kiran ,Virmandi Abhirami, Directors – Rudrayaa, Mahendran, Music directors – Sivaji raja, V.Kumar, Vidyasagar,
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Ram Murali
October 20, 2014
“800 words is considered “a lot.” Apparently readers don’t have the patience for more. “
–> I wish people that decide on these limits would see the kind of engagement and discussion that there is in this blog! Some articles and even some comments are pretty detailed but yet we all enjoy the time and space that it sometimes takes to get a point across…even in the movies, people think that slow paced movies filled with silences will get people to hoot at theatres…i watched ‘bangalore days’ (not in a theatre) this weekend but was surprised by how much the director lingered on meaningful silences yet had a beautiful rhythm and fluidity to her scenes…I think longer articles or movies – as long as they have a strong core element and an easy flow – still do have an audience…
Hari, you mentioned, “his acting is just adequate,and one dimensional” about Parthiban.
–> I am not going to argue with you about the “adequate” part since you are entitled to your opinion. Just curious why despite “Pudhiya Paadhai” “Swarnamukhi” “Housefull” “Azhagi” “KudaikuL Mazhai” and “Aayirathil Oruvan” that you felt his acting was “one dimensional.” I think the movies I’ve listed above are movies where he displayed admirable acting range…
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brangan
January 16, 2015
Happy to report that the “Master of Arts” series of articles has been compiled into a Tamil book, with translation by Aravindh Sachidanandam – the web page is here:
https://www.nhm.in/shop/978-81-8414-903-1.html
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Ashutosh
January 16, 2015
@brangan: Coincidentally, I saw the Tamil translation today at the Chennai Book Fair!
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Viswanathan Noorani
May 24, 2015
lucky to see this article and the conversations now inadvertently , as i googled” BR’s opinions on Kamal”, as i was getting a nagging feeling that BR probably didn’t think too much about Kamal, the creator…feeling much better now..
one aspect that is missed is Kamal’s unearthing of young talent or taking talent not unearthed by him , to a different level…(eg) Category 1 : Thotta Tharani ( in raajapaarvai), Prabhakar, Lalgudi ilayaraja ( all Art department), M S Prabhu, Thiru, Kesavprakash, Siddarth …( all Cinematography), N P Satish, Sudarshan ( Editing) and now , Gibran
category 2 : PC Sreeram, Maddy…
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brangan
May 24, 2015
Viswanathan Noorani: feeling much better now..
Curious about this statement.
Why should my estimation of Kamal make you “feel better”? 🙂
So, in theory, if you like an actor/director and I dislike that person, that would make you feel… bad?
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Viswanathan Noorani
May 24, 2015
BR, there are some critics who i admire and respect for the body of knowledge that they bring to the table, you being one and hence i hold your opinions in a high esteem, your colleague, Sudheesh Kamath being another.. i wouldn’t so much worry about a Taran Adarsh rubisshing kamal, the way he did for “Dasavatharam”…in cricket , if R Mohan endorsed some one i liked, my day was made….in fact, i read your book ” Conversations with Maniratnam” and i can’t tell you how much i could identify myself with what you had written after coming in the bus after watching “Nayagan”…i was also part of the same Adyar neighborhood, baptisised in Eroses and Jayanthis and Thyagarajas of the world in the 80s. The same ‘Physical sensation’ that you had felt after seeing “Nayagan”, i felt while coming from Anand theatre in 19S bus…
Your take on “Vishwaroopam” was a little bit of downer for me ….
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brangan
May 24, 2015
Viswanathan Noorani: Thank you for sharing that.
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Venkatesh
October 22, 2015
Kamal’s take on John Abraham was very interesting! This is what makes him a great talent – both as an actor and filmmaker. The bit about Ananthu and RC Sakthi was interesting as well.
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brangan
April 25, 2017
Wonderful news about K Viswanath. The Dadasaheb Phalke has recognised not just a titan of a genteel type of family entertainer but also a kind of film that no longer exists.
In the post above, here’s Kamal talking about Sagara Sangamam.
“Kamal and RC Sakthi wanted to make a film on a similar subject, about a dancer who was an alcoholic. They even had a name for it: Anupallavi. But when K Viswanath came calling, Kamal felt he had to do the film…”
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Srinivas R
June 6, 2017
I saw some posters all over the city bus stops with Kamal wearing weird looking glasses and then i figured out Kamal is going to host “Big Boss” in Tamil. Arguably, the greatest artist of Tamil cinema is going to host unarguably the worst TV show in the history of Indian TV shows. Am I the only one weeping at this very idea?
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Yajiv
January 28, 2022
Came across this gem of an article after ages. What a magnificent piece on a fantastic life.
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