Mohanlal, Kamal Hasan and Shah Rukh Khan - My View...

Mohanlal, Kamal Haasan and Shah Rukh Khan. I don't have to be so eloquent to give an intro for these colossal figures who literally own their space in Indian cinema. I say three of them are kind of same for me. The first one being referred as the ‘Complete Actor’, next one ‘Ulaga Nayagan’ meaning universal star and the third ‘King Khan’. I consider these names to be a bonus for what they attained from decades of dedication.

Everything true! But then, I love all three of them equally but the eagerness to see their movies are not really balanced. So then I thought, though all three have my admiration or certain kind of madness which is the same destination arrived via three different routes.

Out of the trio, Mohanlal is the person whom I started admiring for his acting. Perhaps he was the first actor whom I started to recognize as a kid of 3 yrs. even now it is the same. He still stands there in my mind with ever youthful energy. Now, no idea of how much can I accept him as a person out of that big screen. In fact I have never been too keen on that area. But when he is on that big screen, he is the one! His style is something immaculate and way far from someone to emulate. So this is the reason why I feel an unknown energy which drives me restless to know the verdict of his movies after the first day’s first show. When the verdict is poor I switch off myself from that area and when its positive then the zeal continues it’s current until I watch it. His styles of acting, his gestures have always amazed me. The way he renders a character, the way he do stunts, the way he even holds a pen have something that’s rarely seen in any other fellow actors. So here is a person who tops ‘my’ list of best actors.

When it comes to the person with smile of a lotus, Kamal Haasan, as his name means, things are again something different. This is one actor whom I still keep on exploring.  He is the Universal Star whose popularity transcends all boundaries and language barriers. Frankly speaking, there is a dialogue in one of his movies ‘Anbesivam’ where he tells Madhavan’s character, “Communism is also like love, it is a feeling”. To be specific this is the point where I started to explore this man. Many of his ideas and ideologies about Communism, theism and love really coincided with what I had in mind which others either opposed or didn't accept. More than an actor, as per what I have known, he was grown up in the entire film industry as a whole and tried to learn in and out and also made use of it to speak about his gathered knowledge, which are mostly criticized. His movies always had this intensity of subject which often used to be too heavy for the masses to clench onto. He is another standing proof to personify a famous quote used to some ‘under’-recognized personalities, “He is someone born on the wrong side of the world”. 

In an interview, when asked about his amazing English accent and vocabulary, he had a very convincing answer. “I don’t have a Degree, therefore I never stopped learning” he said. That is perhaps an important lesson. And there is nothing more to wonder that this man who has no degrees to add after his name gave a speech at one of the IITs in the country with his signature cracked voice.

Now, there is another man in Bollywood. In fact, I have seen his interviews over and over again more than his movies. Now this is one guy whom I love him for the kind of person he is. Shah Rukh Khan. The best conservationist in Bollywood and someone who knows how to speak and market himself. The way he rose from negatives to zero and then to infinity is awe inspiring. He hunted down his destiny brutally. Transmigrating to a flamboyant and talky celebrity is the strategy of escapism he obtained to shield himself from numbness the death of his parents had already brought to his sister. He shamelessly acts before the camera, on stage, in public just to be “bloody successful” (in his own words) and people love him more than their lives. It is clearly evident that there is nothing less than being successful he dreams and starves for. And from my own experience, we may have a million dreams, but something among those which we dream while asleep and awake will be ours someday. Our actions and motives will drive straight to the destination when the desire and fire is reasonable and sincere. Wondering how bored will his actions and motives be for driving the same road and to the same destination again and again and again and this guy is as desirous as on this first ride.  

What I found out is there is an equal balance of determination and fire in them. Not to remain on top but to gain more. When one’s need was recognition, the other wanted to blind himself in the light of knowledge and another guy just fulfilling his dream again and again without the boredom of monotony. Eventually they had no other place to land other than on top.

I must accept a fact about the magnanimity of inspiration they have slipped into me. Can I call it inspiration? May be, yes!!

All are fans of stars...but not always for the same reason.