Happy B'day, Kamal !!

Very many happy returns of the day to one-and-only Kamal Hassan!!

As an actor, singer, dancer, script-writer, director, producer and role-model, his contribution to the Tamil cinema is unparalleled.. The journey he started at the age of 6 is going strong, 8 short of 60 now.. He is one artist who has adapted quite well to his age and played such characters which suit him reasonably well. On this day, my top 6-fav movies of his.. a tough list to make, but nevertheless, chronologically..

1) Moondram pirai - 'THE' movie that made me his die-hard fan forever. No one had such an impact on me as he did in this climax.. For the first time, I started thinking a lot about a movie after coming out of the theater and tried to imagine how the climax could have been if....

2) Nayakan - Need I say more? Those minute details such as the cut he had on his eyebrow, that crying scene, pan-chewing oldman get-up, change in body language as the story passes through different phases of his life.. all these made me sit and take gud notice of him. The first movie I saw 5 times.. each time, I had something new to rave about Kamal.

3) Aboorva sahodharargal - I think it was the first movie which was advertised on TV.. I vaguely remember watching the promos and counting days to watch the movie. It was worth the wait. How he pulled off 'Appu' is still mysterious.. so much debate on how he managed to do it so easily.

4) Thevar Magan - It created a huge rage bcos of the 'first ever Kamal-Sivaji' movie and it lived upto its expectation frame-by-frame.. The father-son interaction scene was the best of all.. very simple dialogues but the expressions were out-of-the-world..

5) Mahanadhi - I would rate this as his BEST performance so far.. more than his national-award winning ones. No weird make-ups, not anything unusual, pretty much a man-next-door Kamal, but mind-blowing performance. Many critics said he deliberately targetted the audience's eye glands, but I wouldnt say so.

6) Indian - Another big combo of Kamal-Shankar. This one didnt disappoint one bit either. It was quite difficult to show emotions behind such a heavy make-up, but his eyes spoke it all. I was proud to be a Kamal fan when my mom, after watching the movie said "what an act by Kamal".. bcos she is usually indifferent to actors' performances.

A special note: MMKR - Out-'n-Out laugh riot. Can watch it any number of times, and still LOL each time.. Look at 'Raju-Kamal's expression when Madan tells him "Catch my point" and he says "adhu ellam thaana varum, ille?".. sooo cute..

So, I wish, on this day, that Kamal continues to enthrall millions of his fans in the years to come.