No fucking apologies to begin with. Like many other self indulgent works of art, this blog series also derailed midway due to various random reasons. However here is another attempt to get things back on track and enthuse the 4 odd remaining readers of the page with some dose of Kamalism...

'Comeback' Kamal - A look-back at what essentially has been a career full of comebacks and counter attacks. But comebacks into what? And counter attacks on whom? It is complex. Our man has always been living double roles, trying to satisfy three very different sets of people.

ONE - The Bespectacled Bastards

TWO - The Middle Men and

THREE - The Uncompromising Anima

The bespectacled bastards are the eagle eyed, high-speaking, logical flaw-spotting, heartless movie critics who compare every movie made everywhere in the world to one of Stanley Kubric's 18 gems. The modern version of these are obviously the High on flair blog authors, preferably with a hot girlfriend just out of a job from school ( I personally prefer the more sensible one's like what you will soon find on www.clapsandboos.com ). These men ridicule the Indian giant generator of awesome movies. Call him eccentric, self centred, unnecessary and what not. The Middle Men are the distributors. They wont movies that can run, and if possible, consecutive such ventures. Otherwise they won't buy them. Period. The Uncompromising Anima is of course Haasan himself. Eternally dissatisfied with his own work. Wanting to create bigger things on screen. Multi million dollar war sagas, ten-tonne extravaganzas, trying to give way to the cravings of an imagination that is way beyond human possibility.

Into each of these three realms, he has made comebacks, time and again. Almost periodical. Periodical - We will start with Hey Ram then. A strong comeback by Haasan making a solid impression on the creator in him who felt withdrawn by the fact that the finance man in Haasan was not enough to complete what still remains the absolute dream - Marudhanayagam. Even other 'what we would call what the fuck was that' creations like Guna, Aalavandhaan were all comebacks into this , the most brilliant of states man's mind can find itself in

The middle men have had their share of Kamal Comebacks too. What with all of them losing hope on this once bankable star after Mumbai Express and him stunning them all with a screamer of a box-office hit in Vettaiadu which was followed up by the big one. Similarly, when folks were down after a Mahanadi and Kurudhipunalish phase, the man sets the entire box office burning with Indian and Avvai... He has done similar things in the eightees too.

The most difficult to satisfy sect of all have been the bastards. The pens and the keyboards. The continuously insensitive bouts of insult. He has made them stretch too. There have been those awesomely perfect strokes from the master, lines right in the middle of the films that sell their soul to those which dont even show it. I am talking about those panchathantirams, those mahanadis, those michaels, devar magans and those what nots...

The show goes on.. Fresh from 6 months of MBA, i am tempted to draw up a table now fitting each kamal film into each of these three comeback categories. I could also draw graphs and make a personality analysis. What are the key learnings? You don't give a fuck right? Let the articles flow.