Kamal Haasan's dual role

He is more than just an actor. He is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer, an accomplished singer, a choreographer and director, the only one to have got 19 Filmfare awards, the most by any Indian.

- ADITI PHADNIS

Seven films starring him have made it to the short list of the Oscars "foreign films" category. He is fluent in English, French, and six Indian languages, including Kannada.

His politics, however, is confusing. His electoral performance in that arena sub-par. Kamal Haasan will shortly become a member of the Rajya Sabha with support from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) although his party, Makkal Neethi Maiam (MNM), has turned out to be a super-flop. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it got 3.7 per cent of the vote. This came down further to 2.6 per cent in the 2021 Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu. Haasan himself lost from the Coimbatore (South) constituency to the Bharatiya Janata Party's Vanathi Srinivasan. The MNM also drew a blank in Tamil Nadu's civic polls in 2022. His story, like many other actor-politicians in Tamil Nadu, testifies to the highly developed sense of discernment in the Tamil Nadu voter.