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“Kamala and I made this list together,” Kannan whispered. “Every time we remembered a film, we’d add it. After she passed, I kept adding. But I’ve forgotten many now.”
The List on the Wall
In a narrow lane of Chennai’s Mylapore, tucked between a sambar-scented kitchen and a cycle repair shop, lived an 84-year-old man named Kannan. His balcony faced the Kapaleeshwarar temple, but his eyes were always fixed on a different shrine—a faded brown wall inside his living room. On it, handwritten in charcoal, was a list: Rajkumar movies. Tamil cinema. rajkumar movies list tamil cinema
Kannan explained: In the 1950s–70s, there was a Tamil actor named Rajkumar—no relation to the Kannada icon. He acted in over 40 Tamil films: ‘Kulamagal Radhai’ , ‘Raja Rani’ , ‘Panathottam’ . He played brothers, lovers, losers, kings. But by the 1980s, his films vanished from records. No digital archive. No Wikipedia page. Just memory. “Kamala and I made this list together,” Kannan whispered
His granddaughter, Meera, a film student from Bengaluru, visited him one Pongal. She found him staring at the wall, tracing the letters with his finger. But I’ve forgotten many now
He smiled, eyes wet. “This, Meera, is my youth.”