A sudden rush of excitement and then normalcy returned.
Today takes me back to some evening in 2006, when a two part poster joined together in the center with a cool cop like Kamal Haasan asking the onlooker (including me) “Chinnapasangala Yaar Kitta?” was stuck outside our wall.
It was a line from his recently released film “Vettaiyaadu Vilayaadu”, it was also probably a poke at then other younger stars he was (is?) competing with.
My mind rushed back to that very moment on seeing the hashtag on the latest announcement from Alwarpet; it said #KamalHaasan232.
Loool I said to myself.
The simple audacity of it, when even now Ajith and Vijay fans are creating a mindless riot over twitter expecting updates for their stars’ 60th something films. It is doubtful with their current productivity that they would reach two hundred films in total. Here was KH at 232.
Loooool I said again, he is still saying “Chinnapasangala Yaar Kitta?”
A sudden rush of excitement, I shared the poster online and then normalcy returned.
Meanwhile…
Media has successfully juvenilized Kamal too or current environment necessitates such hashtags.
It was happening for sometime now, the definition of being a Kamal fan had changed this decade too, possibly it will change in the next.
Being a Kamal fan meant that you would have to swallow the saliva in gulps when he released Guna with Thalapathy, being a Kamal fan meant honing individual tastes, being a Kamal fan meant that by default it was going against the crowd, being a Kamal fan meant you never know what you are going to get.
It was not that KH did not command following or fandom, but the successive movies that he made where he did not fit himself in the hero template when faced with the onslaught of peak Rajnimania in the 90s.
This meant that the fans still retained in their head-individually and not as a group, why they loved him and for different people KH meant differently.
I’ll explain, for some when they say they like Kamal
- it was his film making (gumbal identifier for this is – Kamal is best screenplay writer/director, but Sivaji is best actor)
- It was his acting (gumbal identifier is – Kamal should stick to acting and let others to the directing)
- It was his off screen views (gumbal identifier- KH has constantly inserted his politics as kuriyeedu in his films- xyz kuriyeedu)
- It was his serious films (gumbal identifier- KH is the only true independent Tamil filmmaker we have)
- It was his comedy films (gumbal identifier- Why did he not do more films with Crazy Mohan?)
- It was his social service (gumbal identifier- do you know how many litres of blood Narpani has donated?”)
<Psst gumbal means group, I know I can use group, but using gumbal is more fun.>
These are just the six gumbals I wrote off the top of my head based on impressions on Kamal and that too only from the 90s.
80s gumbals will have their own qualifiers, because this man has been around for so long that not only different generations have hot takes on him, but within these generations there would be sub groups with hotter takes and more often these sub groups don’t see eye to eye.
There is also a growing generation of kids who might probably know him as BiggBoss tamil host.
Which can mean only one thing. No single fandom.
There is no combined KH fandom as it is for other template stars like MGR, Rajni, Vijay, Ajith and so on. Even if their stars go out of their grain and do a one-off film, their fans know that Rajni and Vijay have AR Murugadoss on speed dial to make the next total enmasse entertainer.
To be a fan of the others, is to completely buy into the persona of the star, to see oneself in them.
That never happens in a Kamal film, it is very difficult for a group to identify with the character that Kamal is playing on screen, also always it is a different Kamal and it is through the story or his acting or the other skills that he has that takes away our attention.
So no singular fandom, but KH might be the biggest niche star in Indian film history.
Allow me that one generalization now.
Since Kamal was unique and he tried to make his unique movies, his fans too got unique bits of his persona which they clung on to, depending on how much they liked him over the years.
Which brought me back to the hashtag.
Lokesh Kanakaraj is a self confessed Kamal fan, he even speaks about Kamalism.
Which takes me back to the launch of Kamal’s political party MNM, on the stage of which he said “isms dont work”
Would Kamalism be another ism? Would it work?
If so which gumbal would be able to fully appreciate the said Kamalism, is it his creative choices, is it his filmmaking, is it his insistence on doing quality stunt sequences (an underrated Kamal element even by gumbal), is it his offscreen comments or the newly adorned political character coat?
I don’t know what Kamalism stands for at any point of time, guess it keeps changing like KH himself.
Which was when the normalcy returned.
Lokesh Kanakaraj has directed three films, two of them have seen the insides of a theatre, one is hoping it will pull us into one, post the pandemic.
Honestly, I liked both Maanagaram and Kaithi (hmm), but only till the movie run time and I have never since wanted to see it again and sometimes even worry about the fuss when I see the general acclaim. They are perfectly serviceable vehicles of entertainment, but neither moving to the mad cap extreme to develop a cult following nor pushing tamil cinema to the other side of art.
Neutral films with an interesting premise. (Hmm)
When normalcy returned, I thought about the times when fans got to make their films with their idols, more recently Karthik Subbaraj with Petta, Atlee with his Vijay film trilogy and Prithviraj with Lucifer.
Forget Lucifer, it is a great film, very rewatchable and Mohanlal can insert himself into any persona. I have seen Lucifer thrice in the lockdown alone, so forget Lucifer when I group it Petta etc.
Sorry but my choice does help me illustrate the contrast with the others viz. : if I don’t buy into the fanboy nature of the movie I won’t be able to appreciate it fully.
Allow me one more speculation.
Is Kamalism going to be like the 2021 version of “Rajnified” or will it be another Lucifer?
But why make another Lucifer? (hmm, lot of guns in the poster with a ghost like hero)
This was when my normalcy dipped into sadness.
Ok then I came back to a steady state and said to myself,”let’s wait for the movie, hobbitses”.
And then I jotted all this down.
The End.
PS
But I do know one gumbal who will be very pleased with today’s announcement: which is the “Kamal must submit himself to a young visionary filmmaker” gumbal. (single quotes over visionary)
Lool, I thought to myself, Kamal will never submit, go see the climax of Drishyam.
The Lowly Laureate 