Why this Dhanush is ‘super excited’...di

Kolaveri star on performing in Mumbai and life after the mega hit
What’s the hardest thing about interviewing an actor? The niggling thought at the back of your mind that for all you know, the person at the other end of the sofa - charming, sincere, interesting, interested - is actually only acting; the feeling that you’re being played. Dhanush for example, winner of all rage-of-the-year awards, seems earnest and honest almost to a fault.
“Yes it has sunk in,” is his response to the first, and rather predictable, opening question. Less than half-a-minute in and he’s let you know that speaking in clichés, or rambling on about himself, is not his thing.
For those unfamiliar with South Indian cinema, Dhanush was a big deal long before he framed the question 22,643,223 people across the world have asked in the last three weeks: Why this Kolaveri di? He’s an actor, a part-time singer, occasional poet/song-writer and an aspiring director; basically, a full-time star. He’s done 21 films in the last 10 years, at least eight of which can be classified as super hits.
Earlier this year, he became the youngest actor to walk away with the Best Actor trophy at the National Awards for his performance in Aadukalam, a film that also won Best Director (Vetrimaran), Best Screenplay (Vetrimaran), Best Editor (Kishore Te) and Best Choreographer (Dinesh Master). And, to top it all, he can dance. Go search for "Dhanush, dance" on YouTube if you don’t believe us. Or, if you want to see him live, he’ll be in Mumbai next week for a "secret" Mumbai Mirror event at an undisclosed location. All he’s saying for now is that he’s "super excited" about it.
Dhanush is wearing a red checked shirt and blue jeans when we meet him at his Chennai office. The scruffy French beard from the Kolaveri video is gone, replaced by a sparse two-day stubble. He’s sitting on a large white leather couch, in a large white room (as opposed to nodding at a microphone in a recording studio). What’s still in place though is the smile, one that he admits he hasn’t been able to wipe off ever since Kolaveri di went viral.
"We were confident the song would be a hit in Tamil Nadu, but nothing more than that," he says. "At first none of us could believe what was happening. The impact has been incredible, the kind of doors it opens for me..." he lets the sentence hang. He still doesn’t know, he later admits, what doors have actually opened.
The Tamil film industry - or Kollywood - has had its share of stars who have broken through into mainstream consciousness. There’s Rajnikanth of course, who’s gun-slinging, bullet-defying stunts have obliterated all sorts of borders. Kamal Hasan left his mark on Hindi cinema both through dubbed classics (Sadma, Appu Raja) and tear-jerking originals (Sagar, Ek Duje ke Liye). Prabhu Deva sparked a collective dropping of jaws across the country with Kadalan and his invisible dancing man act in Chik-buk. Kollywood has given us first Illayaraja and then AR Rahman, and India can’t thank them enough for that.
Kolaveri is nothing like anything we’ve seen before. It doesn’t have Rajnikanth’s aura, Kamal Hasan’s intensity or Prabhu Deva’s elasticity; Kolaveri is less finely tuned than any Illayaraja score, and it lacks the intricate grandness and ambition of a Rahman number.
Dhanush says they were sitting and jamming at his place when Anirudh Ravichander, the music director, came up with the tune. "I just started singing random, English words that are commonly used in Tamil. In 20 minutes, we had the song written down, can you believe it?" Actually, we can.
So what does it have then? People who like it can’t explain why it’s a rage. People who hate it can’t help but hum it. "Obviously I’ve had a lot of time to think about this," says Dhanush, before running through the list he’s come up with.
"One, luck, because if I knew exactly how it happened all my projects would be as successful.
"Two, it breaks the language barrier that exists in Tamil music.
"Three, it’s funny.
"Four, it’s hummable... you don’t need a good voice, anyone can sing it.
"And five, the theme. It’s about a boy getting dumped and I think every guy relates to that.
Has he been dumped? "Yes, only once," he smiles. And how many hearts has he broken? "Nonononono... never. I’m not good looking enough," he says, breaking into a laughing fit.
This man may not be acting after all. He really is this down-to-earth. This in-your-face humility, he says, is easily explained, for his life story itself reads like a movie script. Before his father Kasthuri Raja turned filmmaker in 1991, he worked in a cloth mill in Mayilangapuram near Theni district. "He used to earn one rupee a day and had six mouths to feed. I’ve known what it is to be poor, I’ve known what it’s like to live six people to a room. I’ve known what it is to survive on one meal a day. And it’s made me stronger."
And while he comes from a filmy family - his brother Selvaraghavan is a well-known director as well – he always hated the idea of being part of the industry. "I wanted to be a chef. I was so shy that when film stars used to visit my place, I used to go and hide in a corner."
He was forced into acting after the lead on one of his father’s movies ditched at the last minute. The project had to go on the floor, the film needed someone to play a schoolboy, Dhanush was in Class XI. It all added up. His dad didn’t give him a choice.
Then came hits, super hits, several flops, more hits, the national award and in between all this, marriage to Rajnikanth’s daughter Aishwarya - who is also the director of 3, the movie in which Kolaveri features.
He and his wife don’t take their work home, Dhanush insists, and the most important lesson he’s learnt from his father-in-law is to always be sincere. “Whether it’s the most challenging role of your life or a two-minute cameo, the approach has to be the same. You’ve got to keep plugging away, because you never know what’s going to click.”
He’s right. Just look at Kolaveri.