Of movies, messages and mass

I've mentioned about "Chai with Chitra" youtube interview show, conducted by Chitra lakshmanan, a few times in this space. During early days of Covid, i had started watching his interviews, which were predominantly with movie people, from yesteryears and some recent as well. The specialty of the show being, the openness with which people spoke and how he made them felt at ease. His memory power is something phenomenal and even when the guest struggles a bit to recollect the names he would immediately step in with that data. Probably the fact that the interviewer knows everything about what they were kind of disarmed the guests that they can't brow beat this guy or bluff to his face!! Almost all of those interviews will have a standard template - the guest will start with their intro and how they came into movies. Depending on their age, Chitra will ask them about their interactions with Sivaji/MGR, Rajini/Kamal, Vijay/Ajith and also about the famous directors at that time. But if there is one person, about whom there will always be a question, that would be Vijaykanth. And invariably, every single person, who had ever met with Vijaykanth had only positive..no..glowing tributes.. to tell about him. Majority of those interviews happened when he was alive and it continues till date on the same channel where guest after guest gush about Captain and his valor and his generosity. The crowd which thronged the city to witness his last rites was tantamount to the greatness of that guy and not a single guest, to my knowledge, had ever said anything bad or negative about him. There has been several controversial comments mentioned about every other actor and their deeds, despite them being more famous than Vijaykanth. But this was one guy, who apparently had touched the lives of so many movie people in such a good way. 

Interestingly, all these interviews were happening post the Social media storm, when Vijaykanth was the butt of ridicule across every meme. He was portrayed as a drunkard, illiterate (his english knowledge skills were positioned like that), weirdly timed pictures of him doing yoga and what not. Vijaykanth movies were considered to be at par with T Rajendar movies for their senseless action sequences and romance portions and were considered stress busters. When that youtube channel began streaming one interview after another, even the interviewer wouldn't have realized the outpouring of emotions and good deeds done by Vijaykanth and how he would play a role in resetting the fallen image of that movie star. The culmination of all these being the movie "Labbar panthu", which is the recent blockbuster, where right from the first scene for the hero, till the end, it waxes lyrical, literally and figuratively, about Vijaykanth. The intro song is one popular number from a vijaykanth hit and the hero'es house is painted with vijaykanth's picture and there are countless references about that movie star, which has again ignited interest about him in social media, this time in a positive way. 

Whether it was all worth it, be it bashing him because he started a political party, or were they really true, whatever the case may be, the fact remains that, Vijaykanth has been very kind to many people and most importantly have satisfied the hunger of several thousand people by giving them quality food in his office every day. My mom used to say "Vaai vaazhthaataalum vaiyuru vaazhthum" (even if the lips are mum, a filled stomach will share its blessings). Guess that guy is richly deserving the credit due to him posthumously for all the good deeds he did in his prime. That the movie was a fantastic one, despite all these references, on its own is a different topic. Quite witty and the dialogues are very nice. Must watch.