Captain – thou art the greatest

He can defy laws of physics, give shock to electricity itself, lend bouyancy to sunglasses, stop bullets in their path, show how primitive man could have lit up fire without even using stones, make goons fly with a simple touch to his moustache and do data entry work in windows media player. Did I hear you say what about saving the damsels in distress? Nay .. thats too human a task – one that even Shah Rukh Khan can do. There are greater things in life to be taken care of. Meet the greatest of the superheroes, the man who has saved the world from satan many times, the man because of whom thousands can live without fear of the evil – our very own Captain (to be pronounced as gabtun) Vijaykanth.

What superman, spiderman, batman and all can do is nothing but a tiny subset of what Captain can. In fact, the latest kid on the tarmac, Tom Cruise, has borrowed scenes from old movies of our very own Captain. What is Superman? S? Our Captain, as aptly put by one of my colleagues here, is SSS – Statistics, Sentiment and Slap. When Satan personified stands in front of him, Captain starts his rehabilitation by educating him on some very relevant statistics that would put successful sales and marketing people in the world’s best known FMCG companies to shame (recall the number of villages in India, number of households stuff …..). Then starts a round of sentimental dialogues that would even melt rocks. The final part of the treatment is a slap that can result in one of many things, to know more about which you will have to watch one of Captain’s movies.

Wondering who is this really famous personality about whom you have not heard much and does anybody care about him? Read this … when Brian Lara, captain of West Indian cricket team came to India sometime back, he went to watch the shooting of one of Captain’s movies. This link has more info about this, though in tamil. Captain being a really accomodative person, welcomed him with open arms and took him on a tour of the studios. And then there is this friend of mine from Rajasthan, who has recently become a devout fan of Captain. He scouts TV channels every evening in search of darshan of the great man, much to his wife’s annoyance due to inability to watch the Kkkkk serials and her ignorance of the issues plaguing the world that are being solved by the captain.

I know what you are thinking next … what is an Indian hero without punchlines? Can Captain lag behind here? After all he is a superhero. So here are some of those great ones in the history of world cinema attributed to Captain (though many of these lines loose their punch when translated to English, I have still tried to do the same in the interest of the masses):

* currentukku 3 phase… indha narasimmavukku 1000 face (current has only 3 phases but this Narasimha has 1000 faces)

* enakku sock kudhuttha currentukke sock adikum (If you try to give me an electric shock, current itself will get the shock …. BTW, spell shock as sock for the exact effect)

* Captain, after looking at a scanned photograph – konjam joom pannunga (joom it a little bit … we mortals would say it as “zoom it a little bit”)

* dai indha nattula amaidiya irrukka idam library angaiyum unga velai arambichitungila (the place for people to live in peace in this country is library and you have started creating trouble there too?)

* puyal adichi pozhachavan irukkan aana thavasi adichi illa (there are people who have been saved from lashing storms, but there is no one who has been saved after getting beaten by Thavasi ….. Thavasi is captain’s name in the movie)

* tamil la ennakku pidikkaatha ore vaarthai “mannippu” (the only word I dislike in Tamil is pardon)

* unna kolrathu enaku kashtamilla, aana athula enakku ishtamilla (“killing you is not difficult for me, but it is not to my liking” … shit … I destroyed the essence)

* yaei nee ennai gandhi-ya matharadhum netaji-ya mathradhum unn kaila dhaan irrukku (its all in your hands – I can change into a Gandhi or into a Netaji)

* we will meet, will meet, meet

There are many many more, most of which have to be heard from the mouth of Captain to get the effect. So I would leave you to enjoy the same through the countless Captain movies. Meanwhile, you can access this link which has a few of Captain’s clips for your viewing pleasure: