What did Kamal Haasan teach us?

On the actor’s 62nd birthday, we take a look at five things that he taught us that our teachers didn’t

Actor Kamal Haasan. Photo: Nagara Gopal

Film: Aboorva Sagodargal (1989)

Lesson: Rube Goldberg machine

If you’d learnt about this ‘invention or device that is deliberately over-engineered to perform a simple task in a complicated fashion’ in your physics class, chances are that you’d been bored. But Kamal Haasan made it interesting in

Aboorva Sagodargal , in which he kills

Delhi Ganesh using this machine. A trip to the museum is incomplete without sighting this ‘Appu special’.

Film:

Michael Madana Kama Rajan (1990)

Lesson: Laptop

Forget computers, even calculators were considered fancy when Kamal, in his effort to call out the cunning Avinasi, pulls out a flashy white laptop in

Michael Madana Kamarajan. The laptop, which was the size of a reasonably sized wardrobe, could have either been the latest ‘light-weight’ IBM of that generation, or even a really early version of the Macbook Air.

Film: Singaravelan (1992)

Lesson: Morphing

For those growing up in Chennai, Computer Point at T. Nagar was almost a landmark. It is here that Kamal Haasan visits, with a group of friends, to digitally visualise what his childhood friend looks like now. In this hilarious scene, Kamal manages to show us the magic of Photoshop a decade earlier.

Film: Anbe Sivam (2003)

Lesson: Tsunami

In a key scene, Kamal Haasan asks Madhavan, “Do you what a tsunami is? Periya alai illa…malai .” (It’s not just a big wave…it’s a mountain.) That was perhaps the first time we heard that word – something that would become a part of everyday vocabulary a year later.

Film: Dasavatharam (2008)

Lesson: Segway

Kamal uses this ‘two-wheeled, self balancing, battery powered electric vehicle’ to travel from lab to lab in this 2010 hit. Though the contraption became omnipresent in Hollywood films since then, one must give credit to Ulaganayagan for introducing us to a mode of transportation that made walking seem like a thing that should have ended with the dinosaurs.