When a lanky young man, who was yet to gain fame as Sivaji Ganesan, uttered the dialogues, “I created trouble in the temple. Not that I do not want temples but I do not want them to become the den of evil persons,” it shook the conscience of the Tamil society. The camera that captured the arrival of new talents in the Tamil film world — Sivaji Ganesan and M. Karunanidhi, who penned the dialogues for the iconic Parasakthi (1952) — stands silently in a corner of AVM Heritage Museum in Chennai. But it tells loudly the history of the films made in the studio, which completes 80 years.
The camera that captured Sivaji Ganesan’s powerful expressions and voice laden with modulations and emotions was an American-made Mitchell 35mm camera imported by A.V. Meiyappan, founder of AVM Studios. He did it with the help of Akbar, the managing director of the Bombay-based RCA Company, though imports were scarce during the Second World War II. The camera arrived in 1946.
