From a child artist to a heart throb and later emerging as a veteran who experimented with scripts and characters, actor-director-producer Kamal Haasan on Thursday, 21 February, donned a new role when he took the political plunge.
After the successful five-decade film career, the 63-year old Haasan is entering the political theatre in Tamil Nadu at a time when there is a perceived vacuum with the death of late AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa and virtual retirement of nonagenarian DMK chief M Karunanidhi.
He used Madurai in southern Tamil Nadu as the launchpad for his political journey, keeping in with a long tradition of actors/film personalities in the state moving over from the celluloid world to politics.