It was a long time with you

It was a long time with me

It would be a long time for anyone

But looks like its meant to be

I can imagine Kamal singing these lines of permanent goodbye to his majestic fan base of the eighties after scripting Guna in 1990 and making mahanadi in the mind. The decision he took was probably the most crucial turn Tamil Cinema was treated to, because entwined with his later career is the story of the greatest tamil films ever made. How much guts, how much passion, and how much of a heart would it have taken for the reigning king of box office to just leave the commerce behind and go mad behind art. Breath taking art. This article, however is nothing about the art. It is about the crisp sound of paper and how much of it kamal generated at a time when there was no one better at it. It is about the golden days when the golden man danced his way to the riches of the world. Its about a movie called sakala-kala-vallavan and many other money spinners.

There were both major minor hits from 1975 to the early eighties. But what literally placed the man on throne was a self descriptive title - the movie that is sagalakalavallavan - a typical Indian masala fare depicting high energy levels of the male lead. The kind of impact this film had is not very putdownable in words. The biggest production house in tamilnadu , avm, found in sagalakalavallavan, the greatest hit of its film journey. Now that is not as simple as it looks. The movie made more money than any avm film had ever made. And by the time the film got done with its platinum celebrations, Haasan was a complete rage. A name fixed permanently in the hearts of every Tamilian, urban and rural.

Not that this was the first big bang. Ek Duje Ke Liye torched the screens. 16 vayadhinile and sivappu rojakkal made the ticket counters race to eternity. Guru ran to a 100 packed houses. Even the art house attempt at Rajapaarvai went on to touch the hundred day mark.But SKV was gigantic. All encompassing. It just rained gold. From then onwards every kamal movie was recieved with warmth from the distributors. Be it the trashy Savaal and arbit Tick Tick Tick or the brilliant salangai oli. The USP those times was that the energy in performance. It later transformed to the the 'difference' that one now regularly associates with all Kamal movies.

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After other similar hits of varying qualities viz. Kakki Sattai, Nayagan, Sathya etc. came the second BIG BANG. It was a story of a different set of twins. A tale of revenge pulped up with complete wizardry from the actor. They called it aboorva sahodrargal. One of the biggest ever hits in Kamal Haasan's acting career ( keeping inflation in mind), Aboorva Sahodrargal propelled the star into permanent super stardom. So much so that even after years of self indulgent un saleable products, the actor's new films still command a Strong market price.

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With this Aboorva Sahodrargal flow came and went Vetri Vizha, Indran Chandran, MMKR raking in healthy money. And ever since then, kamal has had a single point strategy to control his ever evading commerce market. The concept is to make as much self indulgent cinema as possible separated by 100% laugh riots that come with a minimum hit guarantee . For who will not wanna laugh to three hours of complete fun?.That is the story of singaravelan, Kadala Kadala, PKS, panchathantiram and vasool raja mbbs.

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There was one particular period of two years when he had the chance in his hands to grab the total market and eliminate all possible rivalries. It was 1998. Indian had been the hit of the decade and Avvai Shanmukhi was still running to packed houses, a year after release.. when Marudanayagam happened. Did not happen, rather. Had the film been made and released, what would have ensued is probably the complete change in the way people at tamilnadu made movies a hit. How would a person react to Padayappa after watching Marudhanayagam is a tempting thought. But alas Pokhran had other ideas.

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Nevertheless its been a very interesting ride. Much more interesting than just hits and nothing else. There is creativity, creative success, creative monetary success and a bunch of failures.As one of his songs say 'vazhvinil nooru thadai irundhaal dhaan vaazhkai rusi aaghum, Medugal irukkum nadigalil dhaane minsaram undaaghum ' Among these ultra creative attempts, some click big, some get the investment back and some sink. Devar Magan did the audience proud. Proof that they had the brains to make the choice. Virumaandi broke even and assured people that better times will come. But Anbe Sivam, Hey Ram and such attempts were victims of multiple intended and unintended conspiracies. The legacy however stayed on and the MAN is truly back in form rattling off blockbuster after blockbuster with Vettaiadu Vilayadu and Dasavatharam. His box office future, however is directly proportional to the number of multiplex they build in the cities. And on how anti piracy the DVD market gets.