“Rajini will remain my best friend forever”: Kamal

Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan, the true icons of South Indian cinema, once again proved their bosom friendship on stage. It is none other than Vijay TV's well arranged Kamal 50, a show organized to honour legendary Kamal Hassan on the eve of the completion of his 50th year in the industry.

In fact, the kind of bond and friendship between Kamal and superstar Rajinikanth, is a lesson for today's young actors, who are unnecessarily engaging in verbal fight in empty air.

At Vijay TV"s Kamal 50 event, they showed the world that they are not only best of friends but also sincere to each other whenever and wherever it is... Usually Rajinikanth likes to skip film functions and is very choosy even if he attends. He came to Kamal 50 event on time and spent throughout i.e more than 5 hours on the stage with his friend Kamal Hassan.

In his inspirational and sensational speech, Rajini referred to Kamal as 'The Lovely son of Kalaithai (the mother of arts)'. He said that he has enough material to speak on Kamal"s achievements for two days, and in 1975 when he joined movies, Kamal was already a very big star and could have easily overshadowed him in the 10 odd films they did together.

"He never interfered with my character or tried to cut me down in any of the films we did together. Please note as a star he was much bigger than me and any director would have gladly chopped my role or refused to cast me, if Kamal had asked them. But after Ninaithale Inikkum, he called me and told me that it is better for my growth as a hero if we do not work together, and I gained by it," was Rajinikanth"s open statement on Kamal.

He remembered the time when KB chided him for going out to have a smoke, at a time when Kamal was doing an important solo scene. KB in fact told him that by just observing Kamal, he could learn what acting is all about. Rajinikanth also said that the path they took in cinema was two different routes, so they never clashed.

Said Rajinikanth: "I will not go his route, as I know that I"m incapable of doing what he does. In fact as everybody knows Shankar had written the original script of Robot for Kamal. Years later when the role was offered to me, I told him that it has to be re-written to suit my capabilities. Shankar replied, do you think that I"m a fool to make you do a role that was meant for Kamal?"

Touched by Rajinikanth"s sensational and open minded speech, Kamal Hassan replied emotionally: "Which actor in the world will be so honest and straight forward in his talk like my true friend Superstar Rajinikanth? There were stars before us but they were never as friendly as we are, I'm telling this as a challenge, and we have proved that two top actors can be healthy rivals. Rajinikanth will always remain my best friend forever and he is the one and only superstar in the industry!"

The crowd gave a thunderous applaud after the speech and Kamal bowed his head for their love and affection. Malayalam stars Mammootty, Mohanlal, Telugu actors Chiranjeevi, Venkatesh and leading personalities of Tamil film industry graced the occasion.