Even though the celebration for Kamalhassan's 50 years in Cinema has been going on since August in Vijay TV, I have been unable to contain myself ever since pictures & articles about the grand event that took place in Nehru stadium last month began emerging!
Atlast, 'kanden kondatathai'!!!
The program was fairly neat and organised, categorised decade-wise, talent wise with oliyum, oLiyum performances in between. K Balachander & AVM Saravanan made short & sweet "oosi vedi" speeches having already said much more in the 'thodarum sarithiram' episodes. The Radhika segment was the "sara vedi"! Rohini's poetic speech & Revathi singing 'inji idupazhaga' were 'maththappu'! The absence of Kushboo, Ambika/Radha amongst his heroines was surprising!
The much anticipated unplugged with SPB & Hariharan was a mini "poochetti". Mini because after the CBE extravaganza 'Kamalum Kadhalum', anything else might seem low-key! Vivek's rocket speech was asusual enjoyable. It was puzzling to see Kamal sitting unusually grim faced almost through the entire time, his expression brightening once in while and notably when Shruthi sang "one is the loneliest number"!
The function-shy Ilayaraja made exception to attend his sahodarar's mega celebration. But the "10000 wala" speech came from Rajni!! He was unbelievably Mr. Perunthanmai-kanth! When Kamal came atlast to the dias he seemed genuinely emotional! Kudos Annathey!! You absolutely deserve this accolade!
In those yesteryear DD only days, 2 Kamal songs in Oliyum oliyums, chitrahaars /chitramalas would lead to big elated discussions. Now after happily drenching myself in the Grand event Kamal shower, it is sad to find all my Kamal fan blogger friends in dormancy/hibernation. Even my best friend and fellow Kamal fanatic is in a non-approachable situation that I had to make this Deepavali release myself!
Iniya Deepavali nalvaazhthukkal!!
