Kamal Haasan: The man of many parts, who lost on poll debut

A child artist, a heart throb, veteran actor, producer, director, Kamal Hassan has made his mark in the film industry in his over five-decade film career. He has experimented with diverse scripts and characters in his more than four-decade long film career. In one of the most important decisions of his life, Haasan took the political plunge in 2018.

The 66-year-old actor, who has acted in  more than 100 films, lost the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly election from Coimbatore (South). He contested the polls on his party Makkal Needhi Maiam’s ticket. MNM was founded by Kamal Haasan at Madurai on February 21, 2018.

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He entered the political theatre in Tamil Nadu at a time when All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) parties were struggling due to the deaths of their driving force J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi. These elections are the first polls in the state without the towering leaders.

Born on November 7, 1954, Haasan made his debut in 1960 Tamil film ‘Kalathur Kannamma’, portraying the character of an innocent orphaned boy.

He worked briefly as a dance assistant and then veteran filmmaker and Dadasaheb Phalke award recipient late K Balachander picked him as an actor.

He started his Bollywood career with the 1981 superhit ‘Ek Duuje Ke Liye’, directed by Balachander. Apart from Hindi and Tamil, Haasan has worked in Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada and Bengali films too.

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He was known largely for his mix of romantic and action scripts but he slowly started experimenting with other scripts and characters. In 1990, Haasan received the Padma Shri and in 2014, he was conferred the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to Indian cinema.

He married Vani Ganapathy in 1978 but the two divorced in 1988. After separating from Vani, Kamal Haasan was in a relationship with actor Sarika. They had their first child out of the wedlock and married in 1988. The couple filed for divorce in 2002 and in 2004, separated formally.

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After the death of Jayalalithaa, he started to take to Twitter to raise issues of corruption and train his guns on the ruling AIADMK over several issues.

Soon he started dropping hints of taking the political plunge and launched  MNM in 2018. His party contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections but could not win any seat. Now, on April 6, Kamal Haasan’s fate will be decided by the people of  Coimbatore (South).