The legend who wants to rule on

Some call him a walking, talking encylopaedia. He's more. Some call him a performer par excellence. He's more. Some call him an intelligent intellectual. He's more. Some call him a school dropout. He IS. And THAT is the phenomenon.

Today, he is the one who has come to rule. The face, in fact, that has represented the different faces of Tamil Cinema over the years - right from the child in `Kalathur Kannamma' to the `child' in `Aalavandaan'. Sudhish Kamath comes face-to-face with Kamal Haasan, who streams loads of encylopaediac film knowledge and infotainment bytes at the speed of light.

WHEN I was 18 or 19, I was worried about my handwriting, especially Tamil. Because I was slightly better in English than in Tamil, he starts his flashback on the days when he used to flirt with writing. The relationship only grew stronger when he came up with `Dhayam', the novel that `Aalavandaan' is based on.

It was Ananthu, a writer friend, who got him to write more, saying that he would flourish. ``I co-wrote `Unarchigal' which I later rewrote in Malayalam,'' he recalls. It was around 1980 when he came up with his first independent screenplay, `Rajaparvai'.

``I then stuck to writing in magazines, columns, poems and short stories. I think I had been doing that since 1971. Sporadic writing, I had no reputation to lose,'' he says in what is one of the biggest understatements of the century, considering people have already started comparing `Aalavandaan' with `Silence of the Lambs'.

``Thankfully, I had written `Dhayam' years before Thomas Harris came up with `Silence of the Lambs'. In the original, `Abhay' is a chess player. If there is some comparison, it is because we have been inspired by the same masters and the same films,'' smiles the actor-director.

But `Aalavandaan' was director Suresh Krissna's discovery from Kamal Haasan's ``cupboard of skeletons''. ``Two skeletons, in fact. Because of the distance created by time, I was able to look down at it, with no compassion. Like a teacher, I corrected it. If it was wrong, it was because it was a silly boy who wrote it,'' he says. It's not another good-versus-evil tale. ``Good and evil is a package. It's not black and white. I call it a VIBGYOR. Imagine if the toughest war in life, starts with a place in the womb. Sibling rivalry, when the younger becomes the eldest by sheer virtue of placement inside the mother's womb. `Abhay' is another double-helix no doubt, of twin brothers, one of them a commando and one of them who is mad and kept in the asylum for 22 years,'' the actor of legendary proportions, gets talking more specifically about the characters of `Aalavandaan'.

Does he mean that commando Vijaykumar is not the protagonist and psychopath Nandakumar is not the antagonist of the film? ``No, both of them are protagonists. And both of them are antagonists. What is Vijay? He's a commando which means he would have killed people too. What is madness? What is sanity? What is sanity in traffic? Or in marital discord? Or in a financial problem? Madness is an everyday affair,'' he reasons.

He soon gets talking on the heights he ventures into, for perfection. ``When I look at my face in the mirror, I accept the fact that there's nothing called perfection. So I trim and shave. Try a whole gamut of things that can make it look different. I know my parameters. When people ask me if the film would win an Oscar, I know it won't. It's all political also. I would want to win an Oscar, but not for an Indian film, but being in an American film, after having fought in their own colosseum,'' he says.

``Besides, why should we wait for America to honour us? Why should an Indian win an Oscar? Indians should win our own awards,'' he beams. Self-indulgence is the word to describe him, a lot of critics have said. ``You give me money, give me a ticket, give me petrol, will I not travel? You give me a stage, a role, will I not perform? Indulgence comes when you become a Guru Dutt. What is realisation of a dream? That's indulgence,'' philosophises Kamal. ``Coppola was my Godfather. Kurosawa was another. It's like a family. I like Coppola, Coppola likes Kubrick, Kubrick likes Kurosawa and so on. All of them were self- indulgent film-makers'', he adds.

``Out of my 200 films, I have done only 14 films in Hindi. If I have not succeeded, it's because I have not tried there. I have tried here, with all my patience. Now, I am aspiring to do it there. It's a grand feeling to reach out to Mizoram, and beyond, to Kathmandu, every place where a Diner's Club card is valid. Yes, there is an overseas market and money is important. But it would be great to have not one place in the world to have a holiday without being noticed''.

KAMAL HAASAN

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