New Delhi: Just hours after DMK president Karunanidhi passed away, actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan said that the veteran leader’s political moves were a lesson for him to base his own career.
“His mistakes are my lessons and so are his achievements. I knew him as a writer before I knew him as a politician," Haasan said, speaking at the News18 Baithak event on Tuesday.
“He was a sort of a vicarious teacher for me, for most Tamil actors. He was like a gatepass for us actors who wanted to show their prowess and their pronunciation. The language we used was Karunanidhi’s, the voice imitated came from Sivaji Ganesan, and our vocabulary came from Kannadasan. So these were the three Tamil teachers who taught many Tamilian actors Tamil and the topmost among them all is no more with us," Haasan said.
Apart from that, he added, politics was something that he had just walked into. “Karunanidhi, on the other hand, has had a long, illustrious career. He has permeated Tamil Nadu politics for nearly 70 years and more. He came in when he was 19. Many generations know him for various reasons. I, for one, have seen him before he was a leader. I was a boy, I didn’t understand what the movement was all about and we became part of that movement. These are men of the hour and it wasn’t accidental. It was a call by the Tamilians for a leader and he did his bit. We salute him," Haasan added.
On the lessons from the DMK chief’s life, Haasan looked back at the start of the DMK party. “The odds which they faced in the background of a hegemony like Congress was something. The party rose with just one tool — cinema and they used it to the fullest. They were probably the first political party to use it so prominently. America and Germany tried to do it, but it was only this regional party that managed to it," he added.
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