Duopoly is intrinsic to Tamil Nadu’s popular culture or politics. This ‘either-or’ pattern that equally forms one unit is a syndrome that is evident when talk veers towards Rajinikanth-Kamal Haasan, Ilaiyaraaja-A.R. Rahman or DMK-AIADMK. You need the other as a mirror for validation, even if the reflection may be different. But even within this duopoly-spectrum, Kollywood, as the Tamil film industry became known, threw up a string of other duopolys. Beyond the Rajini-Kamal axis, in the 1980s and a certain part of the 1990s, there was Vijayakant-Sathyaraj, Prabhu-Karthik and Arjun-R. Sarath Kumar. If you extend this a bit further, there was Mohan-Murali too just as the Vijay-Ajith duo was breaking in.
Come Pongal or Deepavali, if you didn’t get tickets for the latest Rajini or Kamal flick, the option was to lean on one among the rest. Vijayakant was very much there even if there was this patronising reference to him as the poor man’s Rajini. The usual stereotypes were about his being this warm elder brother, village chief or action hero, bent on doing his own stunts.
But dig deep and if you are an Ilaiyaraaja fan, prone to hearing his 1980s numbers on loop, there is no way you would miss ‘Rasathi unna kanadha nenju kathadi pol aduthu’. The number from Vaidehi Kathirundhal tugged hearts with its pathos, especially with Vijayakant playing the anguished hero. It is one memory that endures about a man, who later became larger-than-life and also dabbled in politics.
Soon he became this action-hero, speaking for the downtrodden and thrashing the villains. Stardom was inevitable as Pulan Visaranai and Captain Prabhakaran, both helmed by director R.K. Selvamani, catapulted him into the top tier. Many college trips back then into the hills of Ooty or Kodaikanal were incomplete without adolescents jiving to the Aattama therottama song from Captain Prabhakaran or Nila adhu vanathumele from Kamal’s Nayagan.
That Vijayakant was intrinsic to the Tamil film industry became evident when Maniratnam cast him in his production Chatriyan directed by K. Subash. The man from Madurai was at ease playing the rustic character, a cop or the rare city-slicker. He also tugged at our emotions through R.V. Udayakumar’s Chinna Gounder. His box-office pull that had resonance in the A, B and C markets meant that his film Sendhoorapandi was primarily aimed at widening his co-star Vijay’s reach in 1993. A visual communication student at Loyola College, Vijay never looked back after Vijayakant offered him that helping hand. Incidentally, the movie was directed by S.A. Chandrasekhar, Vijay’s father, and an individual, who had directed many films previously with Vijayakant. During his creative tango with Selvamani, a Tamil weekly recorded a free-flowing chat between Vijayakant and Mammootty. The stars discussed plots and action set-pieces, especially the kind that Vijayakant executed with elan. It wasn’t a surprise when Selvamani then directed Makkalatchi with Mammooty in the lead. It all seemed organic.
The current generation may see Vijayakant as a politician, but beyond that, especially if you go back in years, he was a star with a human-connect. His office used to provide food to aspirants seeking a foothold in the Tamil film industry and the generosity associated with him is a trait that many co-stars have always mentioned. And when he passed away in Chennai, it left a void for a generation that grew up in the 1980s and 1990s.
