Chapter 7

His second innings had begun well. I was working on the remake of a Hindi movie for the first time in my career. The story was simply very compelling and I'd decided to make it. Rajeev was my first choice, as he was a wonderful actor, and could excel comical roles. But, after what had happened to Shashi, I wanted him to do a light subject, something that would rejuvenate him also, and that was the motivation behind getting him to do this role. He wasn't sure if he could do comedy, but I compelled him, and told him that he was just the object, and I would be the one behind him, and so he wouldn't need to worry. The story was that of a man, who assumes a dual identity as two brothers, the older one, supposedly the more quiet, disciplined and a clean character guy who works for a extremely strict boss who looks out for principles in every person he encounters, while the younger one, a rogue, who is in love with the daughter of the boss. The movie, was a landmark movie in my life, and was a memorable one for the both of us. The movie was extremely well received by the audience, and he was the talk of the town overnight. During the course of this movie, he introduced me to Rama as the girl he was in love with. Soon, they got married, in a silent affair at Tirupati. The wedding brought about a much needed balance in his life. He was never the same again, he'd suddenly become calm, composed and the new dimension of life had seemed to bring some obvious difference to him.

The following year, I ventured into production, and who better to star in my first production. Shashi did a dual role of a playboy father, and a disciplinarian son in the film, and delivering superhits had become a habit by now. Soon afterwards, I produced a movie, for which he came up with the screenplay. I went through the bound copy to realise that the story was that of saint Raghavendra. The guy had come back to show his thankfulness, and to spread the greatness of the seer, through the far reaching medium of cinema! I was initially skeptical about a mythological movie working with the relatively modern audience, but then his star power would do the trick for me. The movie, which also turned out to be his 100th, where he did the role of the seer Raghavendra, was a landmark film as it got my production company rolling big and strong. Very soon, he was hailed all over as a star par excellence, delivering long strings of successes. One of the tamil magazine articles called him a "superstar" and the tag stuck. He had become the numero uno, the Superstar of the tamil film industry.