Kamal Haasan's guru almost killed Indian cinema's asset Apoorva Sagodharargal

Tamil Industry's biggest director K Balachander who is responsible for shaping actor Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth's career had dubbed the script for Indian cinema's asset Apoorva Sagodharargal as not good and was not happy with the character of the dwarf in the movie. But what Balachander failed to find, Tamil film industry's screenplay writer Panchu Arunachalam who wrote Sakalakala Vallavan saw; a hero who would make it one of the biggest films in Kamal Haasan's career. 

Kamal admitted this before actor Vijay Sethupathi during an interview via video conferencing.

Kamal says, he was inspired to make this film under production house Raaj Kamal after watching Charlie Chaplin.

When he first wrote the gist of the script and showed a few film shots to his mentors, directors K Balachander, Ananthu and Balu Mahendra were not impressed.

"Balachander told me, 'are you mad. You can’t act like a dwarf in the whole film. If you want, I can ask another person to do that role.’ And he asked to keep that role very short. I thought he was beating around the bush. So, I told them, I will show the same to Panchu anna. After seeing this, he was surprised and told me, ‘Kamal, what is this? This is extraordinary.’ He said the dwarf is the hero of the film. He told me to also focus on twin characters who are tall as the audience may get bored and asked me to adopt the concept of Yaadon Ki Baaraat of a family being destroyed by the villain, brothers being separated and reunited. That's all," said Haasan in the video conference.

This goes to show that sometimes even the best directors and mentors like K Balachander fail to identify a good film concept. It is very likely that the idea would have ended up being buried under the carpet, had Panchu Arunachalam not given it a push.

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• Apoorva Sagodharargal
• Indian cinema's asset
• Kamal Haasan
• K Balachander
• Kollywood