Chapter 8

I had fallen into tough times. The film about the seer Raghavendra was made around 7 years earlier, and I had hence made only 3 successful films. Direction had taken a backseat with me concentrating more on production. Finally, I decided to make and produce an offbeat film based on a lady protagonist struggling against all odds, and the world of masculine domination, sleaze and so on. But, the film bombed and I was left a pauper. The word reached Shashi, and he immediately offered to do a film produced by me. He was a huge star, and I couldn't afford to pay him anymore, but he offered to do the film for a rupee. The film, a revenge saga, one about the broken friendship and broken trust, of a rich heir to a chain hotels, and a poor milkman, was the biggest hit in his career, and it placed me right at the top again. It ran for a phenomenal 250 days in theatres, with crowds thronging through out. He had bailed me out of a serious problem. Soon, we followed it up with another film, about a servant to a royal family, who was the actual heir to the royalty, which I again produced, and he had made me richer once again. In the process, his fame was spreading left, right and centre. He made fans in Japan through this movie, as they were attracted a specific dance movement in the film. This was a megahit, and he followed it up with a film, one which none of his fans would forget ever, something so phenomenal that it broke the very records of theatres, the story of a Don turned auto driver, a good samaritan to the public, whose past is buried deep in his heart, and whose collections broke all box office records.

This film catapulted him to dizzy heights, running for 350 days to packed houses in theatres. Following this, each time he came on screen, which happened only once in 3 to 5 years, it turned out to be a bonaza for his fans. Movies were welcomed with huge cutouts of their hero outside the theatre entrance, and milk "abhishekams" being done, and dialogues being greeted with whistles and hoots, and first day first shows of his films becoming affairs of national importance, so to be covered by the media. Movies of wholesome entertainment, like stuff where someone has to spend 30 crore rupees in 30 days, to stuff like a guy being almost tricked into 2 marriages, and then talking the wives into compromising, were his forte.

Then for five years, he didn't act. His dialogues started attaining political prominence. Elections were decided on his vote, and his campaign of word. His fans and other contemporaries were urging him to join politics. After all, in Tamil Nadu, politics and the film industry had a very deep common history, and is so on to date. But, he always refuted the claim that he was going to enter politics. So, finally after five years, he acted on a film of his own script, which dealt with a whole lot of spirituality, and though was not a superhit by his standards, was met with moderate responses by the audience. People began to write him off, when he came back. He remade a story from Kannada, about a Bharatanatyam dancer's execution by her king husband after he gets to know about the affair of his wife with her ex-lover, and the dancer's attempt to take revenge through a couple who comes and lives in the palace some 150 years later. The movie was another of the many landmark movies in his career. The movie broke the record for a Tamil movie to be screened in a theatre for the maximum number of days, and went on to be screened in a single theatre for 729 days. Soon, he did a movie with a leading director of the times around 4 years ago, at a whopping budget of 76 crores, and the film, about an NRI, turning vigilante and destroying corruption in the city, giving more to his fans to cheer about. Soon, I produced a movie based on his friendship with Ravindra. The movie was a flop for his standards, but his acting was way too exemplary, and it won over one and all. Following that, he again acted in India's costliest film, this time at an unbelievable 150 crores, a science fiction attempt, about a professor and his android robot which turns evil after some destructive coding, which was received with a lot of fanfare, and turned out to be a massive hit, and also an acclaimed film. He had received his due for acting wonderfully well, and for taking some sort of an educative film to the masses. He was gearing up for a next film, a period film, when he had fainted this morning, and was admitted to the hospital, on arriving where, he had lost all consciousness.