INTERVIEW
“ I am 63 years old . As a leader , I think I will be useful for another 10 or 12 years . You will have to take it further , so I am trying to create leaders .” constraints make me fly off the handle . Because you feel you are accountable to your producers ? Yes . What I told them ( people ) is : Let ’ s do it together . If you think Gandhiji made Satyagraha happen on his own or Subhas Chandra Bose did everything on his own , without people ’ s participation , you ’ re mistaken . Only changing the leader is not going to bring you change . All those examples are from long ago , not the recent past . Yes , the reason for that is , if I would have said Arvind Kejriwal , you ’ d imagine only a clown cap on him , bec ause the media has caricaturised him . It ’ s not fair . So people keep warning me — don ’ t talk in this jargon , they will fashion another clown cap for you . But I am not scared . I am going to be continuing on this path because people are now giving me the traction I need . I am not talking on Twitter anymore . I am not the Twitter warrior that they think I am because that ’ s old news . I am going into the villages , I do about ten villages a day . We try to do these fourday or three-day trips , twice a month . I go to these villages and talk whenever there is a crowd of more than a thousand . Otherwise , we just wave hands . So you don ’ t see yourself in the ‘ Thalaivar ’ ( Leader ) mode — one man who delivers everything . They will talk about that for sometime . I am 63 years old . As a functional leader , I think I will be useful for another ten or 12 years and that ’ s a very short gap . I am not just loooking at 2021 . You will have to take it further , so I am trying to create leaders . Create leaders ... that ’ s a very modern thought . We must do this , because otherwise , what happened to Jayalalitha will happen again . You will lead a headless trunk . If you were to describe yourself , what would you be : a centrist , leftist , or a liberal ? From a ‘ secularism ’ point of view , you are a card-carrying liberal , from what we can see . I am more and more attracted by centrism . Even a country which doesn ’ t actually need it , like America , is going towards it . They are all leaning towards centrism now . A lot of American professors are writing about centrism . Brazil is going through centrism . It is a myriad mix of countries with various problems All are moving towards centrism , including France . That way , you are intellectually keeping yourself abreast with global trends and not being one more Kazhagam . No , I don ’ t want to be that because Tamilians deserve more . ( Laughter ) Your Vishwaroopam 2 is coming soon . And there was Indian in the past . Your screen persona is often right-wing . I would even equate some of the popularity that Modi has to some of your screen personas , which portray an angry person . What happens with the screen is that they enjoy it , but when they come out , they say that happens in films only . Then they go on with life . So there is no connection between your reel and real life . That ’ s why I say that the success of a vigilante old man is a pedestrian dream which will never come true . So that way , unlike say MGR whose onscreen persona reflected offscreen politics , yours does not ? That ( the MGR phenomena ) is not as bizarre as this . It was not about changing the world . It was about changing the situation — where he gives money and helps people . People can connect with it . In Indian , it is a larger dream , almost Utopian in thought , if you look at it . But it kindles sub-conscious authoritarian fantasies , which might be reflecting in today ’ s politics . Yes it does . As a matter of fact , my favourite film is Hey Ram ( built around Partition and Gandhi ’ s assassination ). It may not be as successful as Indian ( dubbed in Hindi as Hindustani ) but that doesn ’ t matter . I take pride in forecasting Indian politics . That apprehension ( of a Leviathan figure ), I had clearly stated in that film . I pitched it exactly , located like GPS . It starts with the RSS . Do your forthcoming films — Vishwaroopam 2 or Shabaash Naidu — have any political content ? Yes . But they are not political films directly . There is another film that I had kept ready , just in case , but it got delayed because of various things . It is called Thalaivan Irukkindran , which means ‘ There Is A Leader ’. It ’ s not a political film , but it says everything that politics would say . I have taken it to another world because if you take it to politics , it will become either like Muhammad Bin Tughlaq ( Cho Ramswamy ’ s satirical political play ) or like Prakash Jha ’ s Rajneeti . I want to take it and use it as an allegory , but a serious allegory . It is more reflective than propagandist . It is not projected as propagandist . But it says that the idea of a leader could rise from any field . It is reflective of Spartacus . From gladiatorial training , he suddenly rises . A small rebellion turns into an anti-Rome one and he marches on . That is why I have used Macron ( French president ) as a more latter-day example . It is possible because people are giving traction . When I meet all these leaders , they keep asking out of courtesy or out of concern : ‘ What have you done with your structure ’. So they have their warnings to give on how dangerous politics is . Where does all that leave you in terms of coalition dynamics , given that everybody seems to want it now ? I was talking to various people and they asked me what I would do . I said I can ’ t say that I will shake hands with everyone .
20 OUTLOOK 16 July 2018