It was on this day sixty years ago (August 12th 1959) 'Kalathur Kannamma' released and the five-year-old who acted in dual roles and mimed for the song Ammvum Neeye Appavum Neeye walked straight into the hearts of the Tamil people and continues sitting there on a pedestal permanently.  Six decades is a long time for someone to rule their respective industry which he has done gaining the reputation of being the Ulaganayagan.

If you leaf through the history of Kamal the actor it would be punctuated by phases where he faced many mountains of challenges to scale to find his own space.  Firstly as an adult, he entered the scenario when Sivaji Ganesan was already the disputed king and however convincing his early acting was it would always be seen as below par.  By Kamal's own admission the turning point in his career came when Rajinikanth became the superstar and he realized that to weather that storm he had to be more competitive meaning he had to give the audience what his arch-rival could not.

Kamal the cinematic scientist started his experiments and notwithstanding the commercial setbacks, he fought his way back into the people's heart with the sole aim of taking them and his cinema to a higher plane. In these forty-odd years as one of the most respected leading men of Indian cinema, Kamal has not only taken on the most challenging roles by also has brought innovation into cinema and today's audience has him to thank for embracing the digital sound and digital cinema.

Kamal has set his sights on a much bigger arena to serve the people and his fans are bemoaning losing him to politics.  But today on the sixtieth year of his entry into cinema he has started shooting for his 'Indian 2'.  That is not all as his directorial 'Thalaivan Irukindraan' would also begin soon with A.R. Rahman's music and an out and out political subject.  Shankar would make sure that Kamal is back in the reckoning as a box office heavyweight while the Andavar himself will be gunning to make a huge impact politically with his film.  All in all Kamal the phoenix and the true Rockstar will well and truly face any hurdle and best it and here is wishing him that his sixty-second year in public life would become one that will make him rule in every sense of the word.