The Hindi agitation that occurred in Tamilnadu during 1960s had changed the regional politics for ever. The state congress government was defeated by a regional party called Dravida Munetra Kazhagam or DMK in short. DMK found phenomenal victory based on Tamil pride. Tamil cinema was behind the success. In most MGR movies DMK support was undeclared. People were swayed by Tamil pride on one side and the newly emerging celluloid magic on the other side. As MGR fan Nandu liked DMK. C.N.Annadurai, the founder of DMK was a great orater in Tamil and crowd puller. Nandu has waited for his talk for hours on the road. The support was feverish. All Tamil teachers in his school were supports of DMK expecting a historical crowning for Tamil, a language they teach with passion.

Tamil literature was undergoing a phase shift as well. The prolific Tamil poetry with rhythm, meter, metaphor has changed to modern poetry where meters were disregarded for the meaning. Satire and political symbolism took leading role in poetry. The cinema dialogs that were slow, puranic and brahminical in style were changed radically by DMK script writers such as Barathidasan, Annadurai and Karunanidhi into modern, revolutionary left wing dialogues. Poetry is a living tradition in Tamilnadu and poetry pulls crowd. Boys were waiting eagerly to write something to the girls that attract their attention. They believed sincerely what they wrote was poetry. Well, the girls had no idea of poetry either. They all believed that a language that rhymed was poetry. DMK knows this weakness and exploited them.

Nandu's introduction to...