There are actors who entertain, a few who influence, and a rare handful who transform the very language of cinema. As Kamal Haasan turns 70, Indian cinema finds itself not merely celebrating a birthday but revisiting the legacy of a man who refused to let filmmaking become a comfortable act. Kamal Haasan is revered as an actor of staggering versatility, but to speak only of his performances is to speak of just one peak on a vast mountain range. The filmmaker in Kamal — the restless creator, the disrupter of patterns, the provocateur of thought — is a force that changed the shape of Indian cinema.
Among his directorial works, two stand as monuments of his daring imagination: Hey Ram (2000) and Virumaandi (2004). These films are not meant to be watched casually; they demand participation, reflection, and a willingness to confront discomfort. They are cinema that speaks to the mind before it speaks to the senses, the kind of cinema that reveals new meaning each time you revisit it, depending on who you are and what you have lived through.
To journey through these films is to journey through Kamal’s own evolution — the artist, the thinker, and the human being who never stopped questioning the world around him.
Before the First Monument: The Actor Who Was Never Satisfied
By the late 1990s, Kamal Haasan had already carved his place as one of the greatest actors in Indian history. He had reached a stage in his career where superstardom was a given — but contentment was not. Other actors at his level repeated tried-and-tested formulas, secured box office dominance, and built mythologies around themselves. But Kamal was never interested in becoming a monument. He was interested in movement — in evolution.
His earlier directorial work, Chachi 420 (1997 in Hindi), showcased his talent for comic timing and adaptation, but Kamal’s ambitions as a director simmered beyond comedy. His mind was gravitating toward cinema that engaged with history, politics, philosophy, and the human psyche. He wanted to explore violence, identity, communalism, and personal morality — not in a preachy tone, but through a deeply personal narrative.
He wanted to question the viewer. Shake the viewer. Make the viewer uncomfortable.
And he knew that Hey Ram would do just that.
India Before Hey Ram: A Film That Cinema Was Not Ready For
When Kamal began conceptualising Hey Ram, Indian cinema — especially mainstream cinema — was not equipped to handle a story that blurred morality, challenged nationalism, dissected communal hatred, and humanised those who lost themselves to vengeance. The industry was basking in formulaic glory: romantic blockbusters, heroic action fantasies, melodramatic family films. Filmmakers who asked difficult questions often found censorship boards sharpening scissors.
Kamal, however, did not seek permission — he sought truth.
Hey Ram was not just a film; it was a political act of courage released at a time when India was still navigating tensions of post-Babri Masjid, rising communal divides, and a fragile understanding of Gandhi’s legacy. To create a film where the protagonist is drawn into a conspiracy to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi, and yet not portray him as a demon but as a tragic, misled human — it was an act of artistic rebellion.
No star of Kamal’s stature would dare take this path at the peak of his popularity. But Kamal Haasan has always been a creator who chooses integrity over applause.
Hey Ram Begins: An Old Man’s Memories — A Nation’s Guilt
The film opens not with chaos, but with memory. With an 89-year-old Saket Ram on his deathbed, in a serene, almost meditative state. The narrative device is powerful — the story is not told as fact but as memory, clouded by time, regret, and emotion. Kamal chose this structure deliberately: memories are biased, flawed, coloured. And that is the fundamental key to Hey Ram — truth is always subjective to the one who remembers it.
The opening moments carry the weight of silence. Saket Ram’s family surrounds him as he prepares to leave the world, but his mind drifts back to a chapter he never healed from. A chapter he perhaps never forgave himself for.
This framing instantly shifts the film from historical retelling to personal confession.
As the old Saket whispers the name “Gandhi,” not in hatred but with the gentleness of remorse, Kamal seals the film’s moral intention: this is not a film against Gandhi — it is a film about the journey from hatred to understanding.
Saket and Amjad: The Friendship That Represents India
The early segments introduce Saket Ram as an archaeologist working in Mohenjo-daro alongside his close friend Amjad Ali Khan, played with soulful restraint by Shah Rukh Khan. Their friendship is symbolic — two educated, cultured, modern Indians, one Hindu and one Muslim, united by intellect rather than religion. It is a reflection of what India was meant to be before politics tore its fabric.
Their banter, their laughter, their shared sense of history — Kamal paints a picture of harmony so natural that we feel the tragedy even before it begins.
When communal tensions erupt and violence engulfs the region, this friendship becomes the emotional spine of the story. Kamal uses their bond to ask a painful question:
What breaks first during communal conflict — the nation or the individual heart?
The First Tragedy: The Assault That Destroys Saket’s Soul
To understand why Saket spirals into extremism, Kamal Haasan does not rely on speeches. He uses trauma. Raw, scarring trauma.
Saket’s beloved wife Aparna, played by the ethereal Rani Mukerji, becomes a victim of mob violence — a scene that Kamal films with such brutality yet sensitivity that it remains one of the most haunting sequences in Indian cinema. The assault is not sensationalised; it is almost unbearable, forcing the viewer to experience Saket’s helplessness.
Kamal’s acting here is extraordinary. His silence screams louder than wails would. The man who once admired culture, philosophy, and beauty becomes hollow. A single expression from him — blank eyes that have seen humanity disappear — conveys the moment his heart begins shifting from grief to rage.
This is the birth of a dangerous transformation.
The film doesn’t justify Saket’s hatred, but it makes us understand how grief can mutate into ideology.
Symbolism Already in Play
Kamal begins weaving symbolism right from the first tragedy:
• Aparna’s red saree, torn and soiled, becomes the colour of blood that will stain Saket’s mind.
• The once gentle hands of the archaeologist — trained to preserve history — now desire destruction.
• The river where her body is found symbolises loss of purity — personal grief merging into the polluted stream of political hatred.
Kamal does not explain these symbols — he trusts the viewer to feel them.
The death of Aparna is not just a personal tragedy for Saket Ram, it is the axis on which the entire film turns. Kamal Haasan makes a deliberate cinematic choice here: he does not allow the audience time to recover. Because Saket doesn’t. The film shifts tone, colour, and rhythm after this moment. The camera that once moved with calm observation now begins to mirror Saket’s internal turbulence. Background score changes from earthy warmth to unsettling undertones. The world is no longer gentle — it trembles with chaos.
A man who once studied ancient civilizations and their cultural legacy now finds himself surrounded by a civilization collapsing in front of his eyes.
The Vulnerable Mind and the Entry of Extremism
Grief is never passive in Hey Ram. It is a volatile fuel that others can ignite. Saket is at his most vulnerable when ideological predators enter his life. He meets Shriram Abhyankar, played with chilling conviction by Atul Kulkarni. Abhyankar represents a different kind of radicalism — cultured, articulate, intellectualised hatred dressed as nationalism. He doesn’t scream slogans; he whispers them into wounded minds.
Abhyankar doesn’t force ideology onto Saket. He plants it like a seed.
The way he talks to Saket is psychologically calculated. He never says “you must hate”. He says “how much will you endure?” He frames revenge as duty, anger as patriotism, and personal trauma as a collective Hindu suffering. It’s manipulative, seductive, and terrifyingly real — the way radicalisation often works in society.
Kamal Haasan, as the writer and director, understands one of the darkest truths of human behavior:
Extremism rarely recruits monsters. It recruits the broken.
The Journey Through a Bleeding Nation
Saket’s journey from Karachi to Calcutta is not a physical journey — it is a journey through the rotting soul of a nation. Kamal uses train sequences to capture India’s partition trauma, echoing images that live in historical memory: abandoned slippers, burnt luggage, compartments stained with blood, silent corpses. Reality becomes metaphor. The train, a symbol of movement and connection, becomes a symbol of mass death and division.
One chilling dialogue Saket hears during this phase is not directed at him, yet it pierces him:
“If we don’t strike back now, we will never again stand tall.”
These are the words that finally push Saket across the line. Anger turns into ideology.
Costuming as Character Transformation
Kamal uses wardrobe as a narrative tool. In the early portions, Saket is seen in soft, earthy tones, fabrics that evoke simplicity and warmth. After Aparna’s death and ideological influence, his clothing becomes sharper, darker, more structured. The softness leaves his shoulders; his jaw tightens. Without a single “angry outburst monologue,” we watch a man being reborn in hate.
The Parallel Arc of Amjad Ali Khan
While Saket drifts into hatred, Amjad — his Muslim best friend — fights to survive the same riots. Their stories run parallel like two rivers flowing from the same spring but diverging due to the terrains they meet.
This parallelism is genius storytelling. Kamal shows how victims on both sides bleed the same, but politics convinces each group that only they suffer.
Amjad loses family, dignity, and home — but not his humanity. He continues to believe in coexistence, even while injured. His suffering mirrors Saket’s, but his response is different. This is Kamal Haasan’s subtle reminder that trauma doesn’t define ideology — choice does.
The eventual recomposition of their friendship later in the film becomes one of the most emotional moments in Indian cinema, precisely because the audience knows they suffered in equal measure, but one chose empathy and the other chose hate.
First Visual Appearance of Gandhi — Through Rumor, Not Presence
One of the most brilliant narrative decisions Kamal makes is delaying Gandhi’s direct presence in the film. Before the audience sees Gandhi, they hear about him. They hear opinions, accusations, distortions.
People speak of Gandhi in fragments:
“He is the reason we are suffering.”
“He’s a traitor to Hindus.”
“He is the saint who saved thousands.”
The viewer experiences Gandhi the same way the nation did — as conflicting narratives, not as truth.
By the time Gandhi appears on-screen, the audience, like Saket, has already been poisoned by perspectives. This is intentional. Kamal sets the viewer up to question:
Did we ever see Gandhi objectively, or only through the filters of the stories told to us?
The Decision to Join the Assassination Plot
Saket eventually reaches a point where radicalisation is complete. Kamal does not film this as a dramatic, heroic transformation. There is no triumphant music. It is quiet, eerie, and deeply human. He joins a covert militant group planning to assassinate Gandhi. His agreement is filmed almost like a surrender — not a moment of passion.
Inside Saket, grief pretends to be patriotism.
Kamal wants us to feel one unsettling truth:
Good people can be convinced to do horrifying things when they are in pain.
The “Hey Ram” of the Film’s Title Begins to Echo
As Saket moves toward this violent path, Kamal begins inserting subtle echoes of the phrase “Hey Ram.” Not spoken — but felt. A look. A hesitation. A flicker of guilt. The phrase that Gandhi would later utter becomes a haunting energy that follows Saket long before he reaches that moment.
It becomes clear that this is not a film about Gandhi’s assassination. It is a film about a man’s soul resurrecting itself from hate.
Kamal Haasan’s Directorial Courage
What makes Hey Ram historically important is not just the plot — it is the intent. Kamal was not trying to tell a safe story. He was looking at a nation that was increasingly clinging to polarized narratives and he dared to hold a mirror that said:
“What if the one you call a villain wasn’t always a villain? What if hatred stole his soul before he could see truth?”
He risked backlash, misinterpretation, political attacks, bans, and boycotts. But he made the film anyway.
Because art with fear is not art — it is propaganda.
Where Part 1 Ends
Part 1 ends here — with Saket Ram fully radicalised, on a path that will lead him toward Mahatma Gandhi. The next part will dive into:
• The assassination arc
• Gandhi’s entry and impact on Saket
• The “mirror moment” that changes Saket
• Symbolism, music, and philosophical analysis
• The emotional reconciliation with Amjad
• The lasting legacy of Hey Ram
The descent is complete. Saket Ram, a man once shaped by culture, love, and intellect, now walks with a singular resolve — to kill the Mahatma. But Hey Ram is not a film that glorifies assassination plots or indulges in dramatic suspense. Instead, Kamal Haasan turns the camera inward, making the audience feel the frightening stillness of a man convinced he is on a righteous path. This segment of the film is where Kamal’s mastery as a filmmaker becomes unmistakable — the narrative shifts from external chaos to internal war.
Before Gandhi enters the screen, Kamal Haasan prepares the audience with silence — the kind of silence that comes after months of hatred roaring inside a man’s chest. Silence, here, isn’t peace; it is the eye of a storm.
The First Glimpse of Gandhi: A Human, Not a Statue
When Saket finally sees Mahatma Gandhi, Kamal Haasan ensures it is not a grand, slow-motion, haloed cinematic entry. There is no divine light, no orchestral swell. Gandhi appears as an ordinary, fragile man walking among ordinary people. Kamal strips away the myth — before the audience sees the Mahatma, they must see the human.
This is a critical artistic choice.
India had turned Gandhi into an icon — but icons are hard to understand. Kamal wanted the audience to first see Mohandas before they saw Mahatma.
Saket observes him from a distance, like a hunter stalking prey. But the camera lingers on subtle details: Gandhi’s smile at a child, his gentle touch on a man’s arm as he listens, his unshakable calm amidst noisy crowds. Gandhi’s simplicity becomes Saket’s first moment of quiet doubt — a seed so small that Saket tries to immediately crush it.
But the seed is planted.
Dialogue as Disillusionment: The Cracks in Saket’s Hatred
Kamal Haasan never uses lectures or preachy speeches to turn Saket’s heart. He uses contradictions — Gandhi’s words do not fit the demon Saket expected.
A key conversation unfolds when Saket listens to Gandhi address a gathering. Gandhi speaks of forgiveness, of non-violence, of protecting the weakest. He doesn’t speak like a “Hindu betrayer” or “Muslim appeaser,” as Saket had been told. He speaks like a man trying to prevent India from bleeding to death from self-inflicted wounds.
Saket sees the very people he thought Gandhi was favouring — Muslims — respectfully questioning him. And Gandhi responds not with bias, but with fairness.
Hatred begins to lose its purity.
Kamal Haasan uses cognitive dissonance as a narrative weapon. Killing someone is easiest when your mind has dehumanized them. When Saket sees Gandhi as a human being instead of a monster, his mission becomes emotionally unstable.
The Woman in the Sari: A Symbol of Saket’s Conscience
An often overlooked but profound scene occurs when Saket is on the verge of executing his plan. He notices a woman — draped in a simple saree — feeding a hungry child near the prayer meeting. Something about her triggers a memory of Aparna.
This woman is not a character. She is a symbol of the humaneness Saket lost. She represents compassion — the very thing that died in him the day Aparna was killed. Her presence softens his heartbeat, just for a moment, and that softness becomes the space Gandhi’s words seep into.
It is not Gandhi that stops the bullet.
It is Aparna.
Because the hate that killed Saket’s humanity begins to crumble at the memory of the love that once built it.
This is the emotional pivot of the film.
The “Hey Ram” Moment — The Collapse of Hatred
The moment Gandhi is assassinated, Saket reaches Gandhi — but not as a killer. He arrives as a man whose soul is finally breaking open. He watches Nathuram Godse fire the shots. He hears Gandhi fall, murmuring, “Hey Ram…” — words that haunt Saket for the rest of his life.
Kamal Haasan’s directorial brilliance is evident here. The film is titled Hey Ram, but the phrase does not appear until it becomes a spiritual wound on Saket Ram’s conscience. Gandhi’s final words are not merely his dying breath — they become Saket’s rebirth.
Saket does not cry. He unravels silently. The man who travelled miles to kill Gandhi now finds himself grieving for the man he never knew. Grief circles back to where it began — but now it carries redemption instead of hate.
The Redemption Arc — From Hatred to Humanity
After Gandhi’s death, Saket finds himself spiritually disarmed. The ideology that once gave him purpose now feels hollow. He returns to Amjad, the friend he had drifted away from, but he cannot face him with pride. He approaches like a sinner seeking forgiveness — his shoulders curved, voice subdued, eyes carrying the weight of irreversible guilt.
Kamal Haasan never gives Saket an easy redemption. Saket does not become a hero overnight. He lives the rest of his life carrying the burden of almost having participated in one of history’s greatest tragedies. He devotes himself to rebuilding rather than destroying, but his repentance is private, not performative.
This is powerful because true remorse rarely seeks applause.
Symbolism in Hey Ram — A Closer Look
This film is a treasure chest of symbols, each layered and deliberate.
The Title: “Hey Ram”
Not just Gandhi’s last words — they represent the cry of a nation that killed its own father. It also becomes the internal cry of Saket’s soul awakening.
Archaeology as a Metaphor
Saket begins as an archaeologist — someone who preserves history. His descent into extremism turns him into someone who destroys the present. His redemption begins when he chooses to preserve again. Kamal uses Saket’s profession as a mirror of India’s own struggle:
To build or destroy?
Women as Moral Anchors
Women in Saket’s life — Aparna, Mythili — are not written as “supporting characters.” They represent the two paths of Saket’s heart. Aparna’s love is his innocence; Mythili’s grace is his healing.
Colours
Warm tones before the riots.
Greys and reds during violence.
Muted whites after Gandhi’s death.
The colour palette itself narrates Saket’s emotional state.
Trains
They represent the journey of India itself — from unity, to partition, to shattered identities.
Why Hey Ram Was Misunderstood at Release
When released in 2000, Hey Ram faced criticism, confusion, and political uproar. Many misread the film, believing it portrayed Gandhi negatively. But Hey Ram was not a film about Gandhi. It was a film about a man poisoned against Gandhi.
Kamal did not make a film where Gandhi is a flawless saint. He made a film where Gandhi is a mirror — a reflection of the humanity people lost. And mirrors are uncomfortable.
The film was too nuanced, too balanced, too unafraid to show every side — at a time when audiences wanted clear heroes and villains. With time, however, its relevance has grown. Today, Hey Ram is recognised as one of the most courageous political films ever made in India.
PART 2 — Segment 2 will continue with:
• How Hey Ram impacted Indian cinema
• Transition to Virumaandi
• Origin of the film, context, and Kamal’s shift in filmmaking tone
• Beginning of scene-by-scene breakdown of Virumaandi
The dust of Hey Ram never truly settled — not for Saket Ram, not for Kamal Haasan, and not for India. If anything, time has sharpened the film’s relevance. Today, the film stands not as a controversial experiment, but as a cinematic warning, a moral inquiry, and an artistic triumph that dared to confront the darkest impulses of a nation and an individual.
But Kamal Haasan, true to his nature, did not stay in that zone of philosophical, meditative cinema for long. He pivoted — but not toward safety. Instead, he pivoted toward rawness, toward realism, toward a different kind of human violence — not ideological this time, but social, political, and personal.
And that evolution birthed Virumaandi.
The Legacy of Hey Ram — A Film That Grew With Time
In the years following its release, Hey Ram transformed from a misunderstood film to a cult masterpiece. Critics, scholars, and cinephiles re-evaluated it with the maturity it always required. Film schools began teaching it for its screenplay structure, narrative framing, symbolism, and political audacity. Internationally, it was praised for its boldness and cinematic language that Indian cinema had rarely attempted.
Kamal proved something with Hey Ram — that Indian audiences CAN handle complexity, nuance, and philosophical storytelling, even if not immediately.
But he also learned something:
A film need not be meditative to be meaningful. A film can also scream — if the truth demands volume.
With Virumaandi, Kamal chose to scream.
If Hey Ram was a philosophical autopsy of hatred, Virumaandi would be a gut-punching dissection of justice, truth, and the brutality of human conflict.
From Hey Ram to Virumaandi: A Shift in Filmmaking Language
Where Hey Ram was stylized, poetic, and layered with metaphors, Virumaandi would be gritty, rooted, and shot with startling realism. Kamal dropped the refined brush and picked up a blood-soaked sickle. He wanted the audience not to analyze violence this time — but to feel its weight, smell its sweat, taste its dust, and hear its screams.
He moved from the political riots of India’s freedom struggle to the village feuds of Tamil Nadu — but the core remained unchanged:
Human beings commit violence, justify violence, and live to regret violence.
The difference was in presentation.
Hey Ram spoke softly, like a moral fable.
Virumaandi would speak like a clash of sickles in a crowded market — loud, unavoidable, and unforgettable.
The Birth of Virumaandi — A Spark in a Prison
The idea for Virumaandi was reportedly born from Kamal Haasan’s visit to prisons and his conversations with inmates, many of whom claimed innocence or felt the justice system had failed them. Their stories haunted him. Their contradictions intrigued him. He sensed that the truth behind every crime was not a single truth.
This realization led him to revisit Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, where a single event is recounted in conflicting versions. But Kamal did not want to simply “Indianize Rashomon.” He wanted to expand it, localize it, and contextualize it in a politically, socially, and emotionally charged Tamil setting.
Virumaandi would become a Rashomon of rural violence, community feuds, caste animosity, political corruption, and systemic injustice — told with blistering authenticity.
The Film Opens: A Journalist, a Prison, and a Question of Death Penalty
Kamal begins Virumaandi not with the protagonist, but with Angela Kathamuthu, a documentary filmmaker played by Rohini. She is interviewing inmates on death row as part of a thesis exploring the ethics of capital punishment.
This is a storytelling device that instantly places the audience in a position of witness, not judge. By starting in a prison, Kamal asks the viewer to step into the film not as a spectator of entertainment, but as a participant in a moral inquiry.
The interviews are shot in a raw, documentary style — handheld camera, unpolished lighting, realistic sound. Kamal wants the audience to forget they are watching a film with stars. He wants them to feel the texture of prison walls, the sweat of inmates, the cynicism of jail authorities, and the creeping decay of justice.
Angela’s conversations set the stage for the central debate of the film:
Do we truly know the truth behind a crime?
And if truth itself is fractured, how can justice be absolute?
First Version: Kothalla Thevar’s Narrative — The Demonization of Virumaandi
The first major sequence of the film unfolds through the testimony of Kothalla Thevar, played by Pasupathy in one of his finest performances. His voice shapes the viewer’s first perception of Virumaandi. In his version, Virumaandi is a violent, reckless rogue responsible for bloodshed and betrayal.
This narrative paints Virumaandi as the archetypal troublemaker — stubborn, temperamental, uncontrollable. The cinematography during this version is stark, colored with harsh warmth and aggression, matching Kothalla’s tone. Camera movements are restless, reflecting a world where chaos feels natural to the storyteller.
But note what Kamal does: He lets you believe Kothalla.
Just as Saket Ram believed the voices that shaped his hatred in Hey Ram, the audience initially believes Kothalla’s version, because it is delivered with confidence and conviction.
This parallel is intentional. Kamal is once again teaching us: Truth is first believed, and only later questioned.
A Rural World Painted With Relentless Authenticity
As Kothalla narrates his tale, we enter the village of Theni — a world built with such authenticity that it feels lived in rather than filmed. Kamal does not beautify rural life. He shows its vitality, its ugliness, its celebrations, its caste dynamics, its familial pride, and its simmering violence.
Animals, markets, festivals, fields — nothing looks staged. Kamal insisted on location shooting, real crowds, real dust, real sunlight. The result is a world that breathes with life, not sets.
This rawness becomes essential, because Virumaandi is a story about raw human emotion stripped of pretense.
The Arrival of Virumaandi in the First Version
When we see Virumaandi for the first time in Kothalla’s account, his entry is not that of a hero. It is the entry of a “problem”. He is introduced through conflict — a brawl, a drunk scene, or an act of reckless bravado. Pasupathy’s voiceover taints our perception before Kamal’s performance can.
Kamal Haasan allows the audience to dislike Virumaandi — temporarily.
Because only when we dislike someone are we fully vulnerable to the shock of discovering we were wrong.
The Woman at the Heart of the Storm: Annalakshmi
Even in Kothalla’s narrative, Annalakshmi — played with heartbreaking sincerity by Abhirami — shines through as the emotional center of the story. She is introduced as a woman of dignity, intelligence, and fierce independence. But in Kothalla’s telling, she becomes a victim of Virumaandi’s selfishness.
Her character is Kamal’s counterweight to the testosterone-filled chaos of the men in this story. She represents love, choice, womanhood, and the human cost of male ego and violence.
Just like Aparna in Hey Ram, Annalakshmi is not a plot device — she is the heart that reveals the truth of the men involved.
Where This Segment Ends
We now stand at the crucial turning point in Virumaandi — the moment just before the narrative switches to Virumaandi’s own version of events, where the film will transform completely.
In the next segment, we will explore:
• The shift in narrative tone when Virumaandi speaks
• Scene-by-scene dissection of his version
• Annalakshmi’s truth and the tragedy at its core
• Symbolism, realism, and emotional punches
• Why this narrative structure is revolutionary in Indian cinema
The genius of Virumaandi lies in the moment when the narrative shifts from Kothalla Thevar’s version to Virumaandi’s own account. It is here that Kamal Haasan performs a masterstroke in storytelling — he doesn’t merely show a different perspective; he changes the grammar of the film itself. The tone, pacing, music, cinematography, and emotional temperature all transform, telling the viewer silently that this is not the same story anymore.
Truth isn’t just what is told — it is how it is told.
The Switch of Narrative Lens — A New Truth Begins
When Angela interviews Virumaandi, the camera no longer behaves like Kothalla’s accusing eye. Instead of harsh, judgmental frames, Kamal shifts to a more empathetic and immersive style. The background score softens. The lighting becomes more organic. We are no longer seeing a criminal through society’s lens — we are seeing a human being speak for himself.
This shift is crucial. Kamal Haasan makes the audience feel the difference in truth, not just hear it.
Virumaandi starts his narrative not with bitterness or self-defense, but with a simple statement:
“I didn’t betray anyone. I was betrayed.”
This line hits like thunder, not because of its content, but because of the exhaustion with which Kamal delivers it. His voice is not angry — it is wounded. A man may lie with anger, but rarely with pain.
And suddenly, the viewer realizes…
Perhaps we judged him too early.
Just like Saket Ram judged Gandhi.
Just like society judges death-row inmates.
The parallel between the two films tightens here. Kamal is exploring the same core truth:
Human beings do not meet truth first — they meet versions of it.
Virumaandi’s Introduction in His Own Words
In Virumaandi’s telling, his entrance is not laced with drunken swagger or violence. Instead, he is introduced in a moment of sincerity and simplicity — often in a field, at a jallikattu event, or in a setting that roots him to land and community. He is shown as a farmer, a man connected to soil, cattle, and culture. A man of pride, not ego.
Kamal deliberately aligns Virumaandi with the Earth — the most honest metaphor in rural life. The first version painted him as fire (chaotic, destructive). His own version paints him as soil (rooted, life-giving).
The viewer begins to sense how narratives can distort people into monsters.
Annalakshmi — This Time, Not a Victim, But a Choice
When Annalakshmi appears in Virumaandi’s narrative, she is not the tragic collateral of his impulsiveness. She is the woman he loves, the one who chose him, the one who saw goodness in him when others didn’t. Their love story unfolds with tenderness, humor, and relatable honesty. Small glances, shy smiles, teasing exchanges — Kamal writes their romance with an emotional innocence that contrasts sharply with the violence that surrounds them.
Annalakshmi is no longer a passive participant in a feud. She is a woman asserting agency, rejecting forced marriage and patriarchal control. She loves Virumaandi not because he is strong, but because he is good.
And this is where the tragedy begins:
When a woman’s choice challenges male ego, violence erupts — not just against her, but against truth itself.
Where the Stories Diverge — The Marriage That Changed Everything
In Kothalla’s version, Virumaandi is the villain who disrupts an arranged marriage and seduces Annalakshmi.
In Virumaandi’s version, Annalakshmi chooses him, and they marry with mutual love and consent.
This single contradiction holds the entire film’s moral nucleus.
Kamal Haasan here dissects a common societal hypocrisy:
When love aligns with society’s plan, it is celebrated.
When love defies society’s plan, it is labeled betrayal.
The village patriarchs are not angry that Annalakshmi is unhappy. They are angry that she dared to choose.
The Sickle and the Blood — Violence with Meaning
Through Virumaandi’s narration, every act of violence assumes context. Scenes that once appeared like instigations are reframed as reactions. Fights he engaged in were not for dominance, but for dignity. When viewed through his eyes, the same scenes shot earlier appear different — not because the footage changes, but because context redefines morality.
Kamal Haasan is teaching the viewer:
There is no such thing as an isolated act. Violence is always a continuation of another violence, often unseen.
In one crucial confrontation scene, where Virumaandi raises a sickle to protect Annalakshmi from being taken away, Kamal frames it not as aggression, but as desperation. The sickle — a farming tool that nurtures life — becomes a weapon when love is threatened. Symbolism runs deep here: violence is not inherent; it is provoked.
The Tragedy of Annalakshmi — Betrayal and Death
No matter whose version we hear, one truth remains unbearable: Annalakshmi dies. But how and why differs drastically.
In Virumaandi’s version, her death is not collateral damage — it is murder born from male vengeance. The men who could not accept her choice decide that if she cannot belong to them, she cannot belong to anyone.
Kamal films her death with stark realism — not stylized, not glamorized. The sense of injustice is suffocating. Annalakshmi’s fall breaks something permanent in Virumaandi. His innocence perishes with her, the way Aparna’s death shattered Saket Ram.
Here, Kamal draws a painful parallel between his two films:
Both heroes lose their innocence through the brutal death of the woman they love.
Both lose themselves.
But one turns to violence (Hey Ram), and the other is framed by violence (Virumaandi).
Where Saket chooses extremism, Virumaandi is forced into violence by a system that never gave him a chance.
The Police, The System, and The “Truth” Manufactured
Virumaandi reveals how the justice system twisted events to condemn him. Bribed witnesses, forged statements, police brutality, and caste politics all converge to paint him guilty. His screams of innocence in the police station — filmed with documentary-like authenticity — remain one of Kamal’s most haunting acting moments. He doesn’t beg; he breaks.
This is where the viewer’s heart shifts. Virumaandi is no longer a subject of curiosity. He becomes a wound.
And Kamal forces the viewer to confront a brutal question:
How many “criminals” are simply victims of a crime committed by the system?
The Prison — Violence Repeats Itself
Inside prison, the cycle continues. Abuse, humiliation, power hierarchy — the prison becomes a microcosm of the village outside. Virumaandi’s suffering is not cinematic suffering. Kamal strips away background music, stylization, heroism. Violence is loud, messy, frighteningly real.
By the time his version ends, the viewer feels exhausted — not by fight sequences, but by the injustice of truth twisted beyond recognition.
Why the Rashomon Device Hits Harder Here Than Anywhere Else in Indian Cinema
Kurosawa’s Rashomon explored the subjectivity of truth.
Kamal Haasan took that concept and anchored it into the sociopolitical fabric of Tamil society.
Kurosawa asked:
What is truth?
Kamal asks:
Who controls truth? Who benefits from the lie? Who dies because of it?
This makes Virumaandi not just a narrative experiment, but a social indictment.
The Final Act: Truth, Cinema, and Kamal Haasan’s Unending Revolution
When Virumaandi reaches its final act, the line between truth and illusion finally disintegrates. There is no “official truth,” no objective version of justice. Every character has blood on their hands — some literal, some moral. The film’s climax is not just about the fates of its characters; it’s about the dissection of a society built on stories that suit those in power. Kamal Haasan ends the film not with resolution, but with a scream — an echo of every oppressed voice that justice silenced.
The Climax — Chaos as Truth
The narrative builds toward the inevitable bloodbath that has haunted both versions of the story. In Kothalla’s account, the violence was punishment — a cleansing of honor. In Virumaandi’s, it is tragedy — a storm that swallows everything good.
The sequence unfolds in a frenzy of handheld shots, the camera shaking like the morality it depicts. Blood splatters are not stylized; they are ugly, accidental, and frighteningly real. Villagers attack each other not out of heroism, but fear, vengeance, and pride. The sickles that once cultivated life now reap death.
Kamal, as a director, avoids glorifying the action. The fight sequences have no rhythm, no heroic background score. They are chaos incarnate. You don’t cheer; you flinch. You don’t enjoy; you endure. Because that’s what real violence feels like — confusion, not clarity.
When Annalakshmi’s blood mixes with the dust, Kamal gives us one of Indian cinema’s most powerful visual metaphors: love buried in the very soil it tried to nurture.
Prison, Punishment, and Perception
Back in the prison framing story, Angela listens to both sides and realizes that “truth” is just another inmate in the system — chained, beaten, and forced to confess what pleases its captors. Virumaandi’s eyes hold no bitterness now. Only exhaustion. He knows that justice in his world isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about who speaks first, who has allies, who has caste, and who has power.
Kamal delivers one of his most quietly devastating performances here. There’s no monologue, no grand “I am innocent!” scene. Just a man sitting on a cement floor, whispering:
“They said I was guilty. Now I am. They made me.”
It’s a line that can describe any nation’s relationship with its criminals — we create the monsters we fear.
The Final Riot — Death and Deliverance
When violence erupts inside the prison during a breakout attempt, Kamal Haasan stages it like a purgatory sequence — bloodied inmates, terrified guards, smoke, fire, and the echo of metal doors clanging like judgment. It’s not just a fight for freedom. It’s a fight for recognition, for dignity, for the right to be heard before death.
In the chaos, Virumaandi stands amidst the flames, neither saint nor sinner. He saves lives and takes them. He is both the oppressed and the oppressor. Kamal frames him against a blazing background — man as both destroyer and savior. It is the same image that defined Saket Ram at the end of Hey Ram.
The sound design here becomes metaphysical. Shouts blur into chants. Sirens melt into the hum of fate. The music fades, leaving only the sound of breathing — desperate, human, alive.
When the dust settles, there are no victors. Only survivors.
Angela’s Realization — The Mirror Returns
As the journalist walks out of the prison, her voiceover carries the final truth: “Every man has his story. The question is, who’s allowed to tell it?”
This line collapses both Hey Ram and Virumaandi into one philosophical spine. Hey Ram was about a man realizing the story he believed in was a lie. Virumaandi is about a man realizing the story told about him is a lie.
Both films are mirrors of each other — one facing history, the other facing society. Together, they become Kamal Haasan’s magnum opus on moral perception — the idea that truth, like art, is never singular. It is always refracted through wounds, desires, and voices.
Symbolism and Cinematic Grammar
Every visual in Virumaandi carries weight beyond the frame.
The Sickle — Both tool and weapon, creation and destruction. Kamal uses it as a metaphor for human duality — we feed and kill with the same hands.
The Well — A recurring image of reflection, community, and death. It is where Annalakshmi’s innocence ends and Virumaandi’s madness begins. The well reflects the sky but contains darkness — just like truth reflects morality but contains politics.
Fire and Soil — Fire consumes; soil buries. One purges, one preserves. Kamal’s frames move between these two elements constantly, showing how Tamil rural life oscillates between fertility and violence.
Camera Movement — In Kothalla’s version, the camera is rigid and aggressive; in Virumaandi’s, it flows with empathy. Kamal Haasan uses cinematography as moral language — judgment is stiff, compassion is fluid.
Kamal Haasan and World Cinema: The Parallels
Kamal’s work in Hey Ram and Virumaandi finds kinship with world masters not by imitation, but by resonance.
Like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, he understands that truth is a prism — every angle reveals a different color. But Kamal goes further, embedding this ambiguity in caste politics, rural hierarchies, and systemic corruption. He transforms philosophical questioning into social critique.
Like Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, he dives into the jungle of human morality. Both directors examine how ideals corrupt men. Saket Ram’s journey to Gandhi’s assassination mirrors Captain Willard’s journey to Kurtz — both reach their target only to find themselves reflected there.
Like Martin Scorsese’s Silence, Hey Ram grapples with the conflict between faith and doubt. Both films are about believers who lose God in pursuit of purity.
And like Satyajit Ray’s Ashani Sanket or Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, Kamal treats history not as a setting but as a moral battlefield.
What sets Kamal apart from these directors is his refusal to separate the philosophical from the political. His films are both existential meditations and social manifestos. They are made with the intellect of a philosopher and the anger of a citizen.
The Continuation of the Filmmaker’s Evolution
After Virumaandi, Kamal Haasan’s directorial journey took him into new territories — technology, espionage, identity, and faith. Vishwaroopam (2013) explored terrorism through layered national and religious identities. Dasavathaaram (2008), though not directed by him, carried his unmistakable intellectual signature — the idea that chaos and divinity coexist.
In Vishwaroopam, he once again asked: how do you judge a man who hides his truth to survive? In Virumaandi, the man’s truth is hidden from the world; in Vishwaroopam, the man hides truth from the world himself. The arc is complete — from external persecution to internal concealment.
Even in his unfinished or delayed projects like Sabash Naidu or Thalaivan Irukkiran, his themes persist — fractured morality, human absurdity, and the eternal conflict between reason and instinct.
The Core of Kamal’s Filmmaking Philosophy
Across decades, genres, and languages, one idea defines Kamal Haasan’s cinema: Art must disturb before it delights.
He does not make films to console. He makes them to confront. To him, cinema is not therapy; it is surgery — precise, painful, necessary.
He once said in an interview, “I am not an entertainer. I am an interpreter.” That statement encapsulates his creative ethos. His films interpret human experience, exposing contradictions rather than simplifying them.
He doesn’t create heroes; he creates human beings.
He doesn’t preach morality; he interrogates it.
He doesn’t give answers; he multiplies questions.
And in doing so, he has turned Indian cinema into an instrument of thought.
Why These Two Films Still Matter in 2025
In an era of easy outrage, algorithm-driven content, and moral binaries, Hey Ram and Virumaandi feel prophetic. Both films ask the same question that societies across the world still fail to answer:
Can we see truth without bias?
When politics shapes perception, when propaganda replaces empathy, Kamal’s cinema remains a defense of human complexity. In every communal riot, every manipulated trial, every judgment shouted on social media, Saket Ram and Virumaandi live again — not as men of the past, but as mirrors of the present.
Their pain reminds us that truth is fragile. That hatred is seductive. And that redemption, though rare, is worth everything.
Kamal Haasan at 70 — The Man Beyond the Auteur
At 70, Kamal Haasan is not merely a veteran. He is a movement that refuses to retire. He embodies the rare paradox of age and innovation — a man who has lived seven decades but still experiments like a debutant.
To speak of Kamal Haasan at 70 is to speak of a life spent in service of questioning. From child actor to megastar, from romantic hero to revolutionary filmmaker, his career is not a straight line but a spiral — constantly revisiting old questions with new eyes.
He has defied not only the conventions of cinema but the expectations of time. While many actors aged into caricatures of their younger selves, Kamal evolved into something richer — a philosopher who performs, a performer who philosophizes.
The Final Frame — From “Hey Ram” to “Ayyayo”
If Hey Ram ends with a whisper of repentance, Virumaandi ends with a scream of injustice. Between the two lies the full spectrum of human emotion — guilt and rage, love and loss, memory and morality.
Together, these films are Kamal Haasan’s autobiography in code. Hey Ram is the mind’s confession; Virumaandi is the body’s rebellion. One looks backward in shame; the other looks outward in defiance.
Their dialogue with each other is eternal:
Saket Ram asks, “Why did I hate?”
Virumaandi asks, “Why did you judge?”
And Kamal Haasan, the man behind them both, asks, “Why did we forget to feel?”
Epilogue: The Artist Who Became His Own Genre
There are directors who imitate life and those who stylize it. Kamal Haasan does both and then transcends them. He merges the classical rigor of world cinema with the moral complexity of Indian philosophy. His films are temples where reason and chaos pray side by side.
To call him a “legend” feels inadequate. Legends are remembered. Kamal Haasan is studied. He is not an era — he is a continuum.
At 70, when most would look back, Kamal still looks forward — not to repeat, but to reinvent. And if Hey Ram and Virumaandi are any measure of his artistic courage, the question isn’t what he will do next, but how far we, as an audience, are willing to follow.
Because Kamal Haasan doesn’t make films for comfort.
He makes them to remind us that cinema — like truth — only matters when it hurts before it heals.