Race-driver Ajith blazes away on Kollywood tracks.

The million-dollar question in Tamil Cinema remains unanswered till this moment and the question is obvious; who is going to be the darling of the masses and bequeathed the status of a new generation super-star. Is it Ajith or Vijay? Industry pundits might say that it continues to be a see-saw battle between prince charming Ajith and the more subdued Vijay. But looking at the fanfare that Ajith had won for himself and bearing in mind that Vijay lost much of his gained ground the hot seat of contention in the hearts of the fans would finally be Ajith's. 

Ajith, who dropped out of school, took to the adventure sport of a race-driver. Blazing all the way mounted on his bike he had a nasty fall and had to be hospitalized for convalescence. He had decided to change tracks then and chose the safer job of a sales man in a garment export firm. Then guided by his instinct he concentrated to build up a career in modeling. Modeling opened the doors to filmdom. 

At first Ajith with his Grecian good looks found the going hard, as his films did not do well. The Tamil film industry tried to write him off in haste. But he rose like a phoenix from the ashes with the release of Agathian's "Kathal Kottai", which saw packed houses all over Tamilnadu and the film won a national award for Agathian. Ajith, imbalanced by the phenomenal success of "Kathal Kottai", signed up a string of flops. It was at this time his best friend decided to make a different movie with him and young director Surya. They rehashed "Darr" and "Baazigar" and the result was "Valee", released in May 1999, a month after Rajnikanth's "Padayappa". "Valee" was a mega hit that made Ajith a superstar, overnight. 

Pot-boiler "Valee" was followed by "Amarkalam" where he was paired for the first time with Shalini. "Amarkalam" not only became a super hit, but also saw Ajith fall in love with heroine Shalini, who became his wife after a breezy romance. Ajith is a mellowed man now. He seems to have confided to one of his friends "I have been immature and made many blunders in my life. But Shalu has stabilized my life and I am having a good life now". He is very possessive about Shalini and has sworn that he will not let her wife act again in films. Ajith admits that he wants his wife and her time for himself.

Wife Shalini can afford to sit and relax since Ajith is doing pretty well and he is one of the highest paid actors in Kollywood. He gets what he demands. A crore per film? Yeah, the producers are more than willing to pay him a fat cheque. Ajith's "Kandukondain Kandukondain", where he had a cameo role has been appreciated even in Mumbai and northern India, where they never accept a Dravidian hero. Ace cinematographer Santosh Sivan has just completed a schedule with him for his magnum opus "Ashoka The Great", where he plays Shah Rukh Khan's younger brother. King Khan was so impressed with Ajith that he, as the producer, asked Sivan to extend Ajith's role. 

But Ajith is not exactly over-awed by Bollywood. For the moment he is preoccupied with Tamil films. Releasing this Pongal is "Dheena", an action movie where he plays a rowdy. This will be followed by "Citizen", where he plays nine roles. At the moment he is riding the crest of the popularity wave in a big way. And it is a fact that after Rajnikant and Kamal Hassan he has the best initial at the box-office. It looks like he is more favoured and fancied as an actor and a human being and Ajith is expected to win the top slot which is lying vacant now.

Updated on 04 - 04 - 2001

Compiled by U. Bharat.

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