Thangavelu slipped into this “nominal” position in 1989. Every day, he puts in 2 hours of work for the iyakkam, responding to emails or coordinating blood donation drives or whatever else the day demands. But his full-time career involves running a cable television network as well as a jewellery wholesale business in Coimbatore. “Kamal sir always tells us to take care of our own work first before attending to the fan affairs,” he says.
The blood donation drive is the iyakkam’s signature activity, so much so that, in Coimbatore’s hospitals, patients needing blood are first directed to the iyakkam’s blood banks. So far, its members have donated nearly 400,000 litres of blood. “Kamal sir was the first to donate, way back in 1985, and of course, at that time, we just followed him,” Thangavelu says. “If he’d shaved his head bald, we’d have shaved our heads bald. He gave blood, so we gave blood. We only realized the utility of it much, much later.”
From a cabinet, R. Satyanarayan, an earnest volunteer, pulls out stacks of little books that list the iyakkam’s blood donors across Tamil Nadu, classified by blood group and, in many cases, with printed mobile phone numbers. Satyanarayan saw his first Kamal Hassan film when he was nine years old, and he finally saw the star in person at the premiere of the cult comedy classic Michael Madana Kamarajan. “By which time, I had already set up a chapter of the iyakkam in my hometown of Rasipuram,” Satyanarayan says.
Satyanarayan reserves nearly as much respect for Thangavelu as he does for Hassan. “I met Thangavelu sir when I was 12 years old, when we’d gone from Rasipuram to Coimbatore to see if we could set up our own chapter,” he says. “Kamal sir consults him on so many things. They talk virtually every day.”
At which Thangavelu smiles bashfully, murmurs self-deprecating things, and deftly turns the conversation back to the actor. “Kamal sir could have turned this into a political organization so easily if he’d wanted to, but he preferred to keep it a social welfare organization,” he says. Then the official mask slips, and for a moment Thangavelu channels the pure awe of the true fan: “He’s so talented. He can do anything in cinema—he can sing, he can dance, he can direct. He really does things with a difference.”
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SA CHANDRASEKHAR
Honorary President, Ilaya Thalapathi Vijay Narpani Iyakkam
Of all the members of the 37,000 fan clubs belonging to the Ilaya Thalapathi Vijay Narpani Iyakkam, Chandrasekhar can accurately claim to have known Vijay the longest: right from the moment of Vijay’s birth, at a government hospital in Chennai. “That was all I could afford at the time,” Chandrasekhar says.
SA Chandrasekhar, Honorary President, Ilaya Thalapathi Vijay Narpani Iyakkam
If it is an odd feeling to head your own son’s fan association, Chandrasekhar does not betray it. He insists, in fact, on calling them “followers” rather than “fans”, an emphasis that hints vaguely at the political. “In the last five years, since I have been in this post, this is how I have tried to mould the association,” he says. “I want them to think beyond cinema. They have to be useful to society even on the days of the year when no film is releasing. There’s more to life than just whistling or pouring milk on cut-outs.”