An autorickshaw driver, a footballer, a cop, an army man, a lawyer, a teacher, a doctor and eventually, a chief minister—for over a decade now, Vijay’s films have strategically constructed cinematic narratives that have functioned as political rehearsal. In the 2017 Tamil film Mersal, in which he essayed a triple role, one of his characters had him delivering a line that is in IMDB’s list of Vijay’s most iconic dialogues. “It takes a lifetime to create a leader. We get only one leader for a generation. A leader isn’t merely a word. It stands for the trust of an entire generation,” says the village wrestler, who takes on the moniker given to Vijay by the people—‘Thalapathy’ or ‘General’.
