Now screening: Putting name before the title

Tamil actor Ajith Kumar has been in the news. An emotional response for an incident of this nature, nearly life-threatening, from Ajith’s fan base would perhaps have received massive amplification had the actor’s fan clubs coordinated or manufactured a reaction. In 2021, again, Ajith expressed his desire for a mundane existence when he asked people to cut out the title bestowed on him as ‘Thala’. In what constitutes the Tamil cinema milieu, it is an established tradition to weld a grand title to the given name of a big actor, as if to celebrate immortal distortion. E V Ramasamy has always been Periyar; it is ‘Perarignar Anna’, not just C N Annadurai; ‘Kalaignar’ not just M Karunanidhi; ‘Puratchi Thalaivar’ for M G Ramachandran, and his follower was ‘Puratchi Thalaivi’ J Jayalalitha; then came ‘Captain’ Vijaykanth, and the most recent entrant is ‘Thalapathy’ Vijay.