Thread by @vijnad

Thanks @lokeshbag67, for bringing up memories of MY FATHER, S. Thiraviam Nadar in your thread on Rajnikanth's trilingual movie 'Kaala', based on his life. Though @beemji found my father's story inspirational enough to make a movie on it, he clearly got greedy about the story 1/n

This film happened because Rajnikanth wanted a real life classic movie made in the twilight of his career like #nayagan made by #ManiRatnam starring #KamalHaasan in Tamil/Telugu & #VinodKhanna in Hindi #Nayakan 2/n

Though @beemji kept denying that the movie was inspired by my father, I revealed the story of the movie ONE YEAR before the movie was released in this interview. In an interview with Times of India, Chennai, @beemji revealed that he had heard my father's story from his uncle 3/n

@beemji used to visit this uncle residing in Dharavi as a young boy. But just because he has a Dalit identity, this movie cannot be interpreted as a Dalit film. This is as I have reiterated several times in many interviews, a story of Mumbai's urban poor which included Dalits 4/n

My father worked for the abject poor in Dharavi, including dalits, Muslims, Christians, Kolis, even poor Brahmins, besides those from the Nadar community who had fled the famine in Tirunelveli district. He cried when he saw the hungry poor. It did not matter who they were 5/n

It's an irony that my father is from the same generation & district in TamilNadu as #VaradarajanMudaliar, who's life inspired #Nayakan & #HajiMastan who's life inspired #Once__Upon_A_Time_In_Mumbai, but never made the headlines, bcoz he kept his focus on the poor, not crime 6/n

With @gautam_adani eyeing Dharavi with a redevelopment project of 3 billion it must be said how Dharavi sprung up in the first place! Dharavi was nothing more than 600 kms of swamps. My father landed in Mumbai in 1950's as a 16 yr old, fleeing from a killer famine, by mistake 7/n

He had no idea where Mumbai/Bombay was. Most from TN went to either SirLanka or Burma to flee poverty. His destiny brought him to a city where he was alone, did not know the language & still became a hero to millions of poor from his hometown, who's lives he transformed 8/n

Since Dharavi was nothing more than a swamp, my father captured this land & with his people cleared the water, filled it with sand, over which came up the slums, slowly growing to house millions with several industries too. at a time when they made no headlines 9/n

This has been captured in great detail in the animated section of #Kaala, which narrated in several interviews, much before the movie's release. My father & his supporters even built the Kamarajar Memorial High School in Dharavi, which has been shown extensively in the movie 10/n

This school came up on a part of a swamp, where illicit liquor used to be brewed. The school was a necessity, bcoz the nearby Tamil/English schools #SIES & #SIWS, with a brahmin management, refused to give access to the slum kids 11/n

Dharavi was very close to Matoshree which was abode to #BalThackeray, who decided to give wings to his political career in the late 60's,early 70's, by starting a campaign against the "kaala's", the poor "madrassis" running around the slums, trying to live their lives 12/n

My father threatened the then budding politician #BalThackeray that the "kaalas" have nothing to lose, so they will fight till their death, but he needs to watch for his men, the locals It's my father, Varadarajan & Haji Mastan to forced Thackeray to drop his vile campaign 12/n

#NanaPatekar essayed the role of Thackeray without probably realizing who's story it is. Though @wunderbarfilms run by @dhanushkraja refused to give credit, thousands who passed out from Dharavi and now spread around India/World called/messaged to pay tribute to my father 12/n

For more details on the life of my father and how Dharavi happened read :
thecitizen.in/index.php/en/N…
indulgexpress.com/entertainment/…
theweek.in/news/entertain…
https://t.co/98r8ZmdiB6
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/…