Forty two years after they served notice on screen, K Balachander’s boys are now set for another collision course — this time on the political battlefield
Sudha G. Tilak (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 1, 2018)

Politics and popular entertainment, and that includes literature and art, have been close kin in Tamil Nadu. CN Annadurai, the founder of the DMK, and K Kamaraj, the trusted Congress leader, were seen as rivals; chief ministers M G Ramachandran and M Karunanidhi were friends turned foes on the political front; and Karunanidhi’s rivalry with the late chief minister J Jayalalitha was marked by assaults, vengeful oaths, and political vendetta.

Not unsurprisingly, the ode to the friends-turned-rivals was best showcased in 1997 by auteur Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar or The Duo, a biopic of the charismatic MGR and stalwart Karunanidhi.

“The dual titans in art forms or politics is not peculiar to Tamil Nadu alone; however, from MGR and Karunanidhi’s times to Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan today, it seems to have the media in a frenzy,” says film historian Theodore Baskaran.

On the artistic platform, the most prominent feud has been MGR’s rivalry with Sivaji Ganesan. Theirs was a perennial battle between the artiste and the matinee idol. Apocryphal tales abound about how the two — or their associates — would play their heroines against the other; how the release dates of their movies would be a meddlesome issue for producers, and how one secretly envied the other for his acting prowess, while being looked down upon by his rival for his easy popularity.

It didn’t help that Ganesan’s foray into politics ended badly, with the party floated by him losing in the elections in 1989.

Once MGR retired from films and moved into active politics, the next generation took up the baton.

While Kamal Haasan had begun life before the cameras as a child actor, he was cinematically born into prominence in 1975. The film was Apoorva Ragangal, helmed by K Balachander. The auteur had picked a scruffy student from the Madras Film Institute to play a shadowy character at the movie’s fag-end – as a twist to the tale that had Kamal in the lead as a young rebel. Reportedly, Kamal had been curious about why his guru had picked the rakish-looking chap. The role was small and negative. But then Sivaji Rao Gaekwad, renamed as Rajinikanth by Balachander, made everyone sit up and take notice. Since 1975 Kamal and Rajini have starred in 11 films, in which they have played a variety of contrasting — and iconic — characters: among them, Rajini as Parattai and Kamal as Chappani in 16 Vayathinile; Kamal as the naive Balaji and Rajini as the scheming Prasad in Moondru Mudichu. Their last film outing together was in Geraftaar, a Hindi film, in 1985. Their partnership produced some very different films. And off-screen their friendship and mutual decision to rein in the madness of fan club rivalry and finances by not starring in movies together has been a sensible one.

Rajini married into a traditional Vaishnavite Tamil Brahmin family and sought a spiritual profile off-screen. Kamal was seen as spurning his Brahminical lineage with a liberal lifestyle and a string of relationships.

As Chennai based writer and journalist Janaki Venkataraman says, “The polarity was clear between MGR and Sivaji. MGR did only heroic, good man roles. Sivaji did both hero and antihero (like Andha Naal) roles with grey tones. In the case of Kamal and Rajini, there was a see-saw. Kamal started out as a hero but later went on to do many anti-hero roles. But both acted together in many more films than Sivaji and MGR ever did”.

Kamal has openly spoken of his Left leanings in his early years, and shown allegiance to the Dravidian parties, especially the DMK and the social justice causes of the party. His oeuvre has mirrored caste issues (Thevar Magan, Virumandi) and, in recent times, communal issues (Dasavataram, Vishwaroopam) and exhibits a pronounced leaning towards a liberal humanism (Anbe Sivam). With a sense of history and purpose, his films and his political character has run on parallel lines. Rajini, who announced his political ambitions late last year, has sought to pick his entertainers with “punch dialogues”, an artistic leeway to introduce the possibility of him emerging as a leader of the Tamil people.

For the right-thinking person, Kamal’s entry into politics and retirement from films seems to offer a ray of optimism. He has floated his own party, Makkal Needhi Maiam, and has been outspoken on a range of issues, though his party’s funding and his manifesto are yet to materialise.

Rajini’s promise of a “spiritual” politics seems to suggest a leaning towards, as Kamal recently mocked him, a “saffron colour”. The two have promised “clean and corruption-free governance,” but political observers don’t think the promises will cut much ice this time in Tamil Nadu.

“If anything, the people of Tamil Nadu are more politically savvy than anywhere else, thanks to the Dravidian movement. I doubt if ‘clean politics’ will make a dent. People may take their cookers and TVs, but not necessarily give their votes for superstars”, says Pritham K Chakravarthy, script reader and former professor of acting, Hyderabad University.