KAMAL GETUP - OMG

Actor Full Name: Kamal Hassan

Family: Srinivasan Iyer-Father, Rajalakshmi-Mother, Charu and Chandra- two brothers, Shruti and Akshara-his daughters

Date of birth: November 7th, 1954

Born and Brought up in:  Paramakkudi of Ramanathapuram District

First Film: Kalathoor Kannamma in Tamil

Lanuguages acted in:  Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi

Special Talent: Classical Dance

Awards

Padmashree, Kalaimamani Awards and states awards from Tamil Nadu government.  National award for best actor for Mundram Pirai (1963), Nayakan 1988 and Indian 1996.

Based in the south Indian film industry Kamal Haasan is a highly acclaimed and highly versatile Indian film actor. He a was born to Rajalakshmi and Srinivasan as their fourth and youngest child. Kamal’s  all three sibling has the suffix Haasan as a sign of his friendship to one Mr. Haasan.     

He entered the film world as a child actor at the tender age of 6 in the film Kalathur Kannamma and has been associated with the film world since then.  Kamal Haasan learnt the fine arts in his early years instead of school work.

When he was a teenager, he started working as an assistant choreographer in movies and it was during this time that his long and fruitful association with notable Tamil film director, K. Balachander began.

Kamal’s acting career spreads over four decades.  Kamal is known in the Indian film industry for his talent and versatility he has capably played a diversity of characters in his films. Kamal has appeared in movies made in six languages, including the four major South Indian languages – Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Kamal other forays were into the North Indian movie indusrty via Hindi and Bengali films. He is also an actor, director, producer, screenplay writter, lyricst, comedian, dancer, singer. Kamal acted in commercialised films for a major portion of his career, but then moved away from the purely commercial ventures. Kamal is also a trained playback singer and sometimes pens the lyrics for the soundtracks of some of his recent films. He is also an able performer of the Bharatanatyam dance form. Kamal had assisted in choreography early in his career and he is easily the greatest actor Tamil cinema has ever produced.He is a three-time winner of the National Film Award for Best Actor for the films Nayagan, Moondram Pirai, and Indian. Kamal also won the national award for Best Child Actor for his performance in Kalathoor Kannamma. Kamal has also received the best actor award at the Asian Film festivals held in 1983 and 1985 for Saagara Sangamam and Swathi Muthyam respectively. Six of Kamal movies have been sent as India’s official entry to the Oscars- The only actor to achieve this feat in the sub-continent. He has won the Filmfare awards 18 times. Kamal was awarded the fourth highest recognition given to Indian civilians – the Padmashri in 1990. Kamal was conferred an honorary doctorate by Sathyabama Deemed University, Chennai in 2005.

He has won a total of 171 awards which is more than any other actor in the world living or dead. Kamal was named as kalaignani meaning – an idiol of art, by M. Karunanidhi for his classical work towards tamil cinema.

In Kamal upcoming film Dasavatharam, he is playing 10 different roles, an act which is the second of its kind in the world, after the Tamil movie Dambachari (1936). Kamal  was married to Vani Ganapathy and later married Sarika with whom he has two daughters (Shruthi and Akshara).

Uttarakhand floods: 1000 stranded pilgrims spotted

 

 

Dehradun: As weather continues to play a spoil sport in flood-hit Uttarakhand, rescue agencies, including the Army and the ITBP, Saturday morning resumed the evacuation process of stranded people from flood-hit areas of the hill state.

Security forces today rescued 17 foreign tourists from Dharasu and sighted 1000 pilgrims stuck between Kedarnath and Gaurikund even as bad weather hampered chopper operations at some places.


Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, meanwhile, arrived here to review ongoing rescue efforts in consultation with Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna.

Briefing the media, Shinde said, “Despite bad weather Army, NDRF, ITBP are conducting rescue operations,” adding that “the operations are on a war footing.”

Giving details of the rescue operations, the Home Minister said that the identification of dead bodies has begun and DNA tests of bodies which are hard to identify will be undertaken.

“About 200 people are stuck in Jangalchetti, our priority right now is to provide them food somehow,” Shinde added.

An eight-member team of experts is also being sent to Kedarnath shrine today to take a count of bodies lying in the temple area, Disaster Management authorities here said.

Photos of the bodies strewn all over the area will be taken and put on the state government's official website, they said.

Chopper operations were hampered here early this morning with overcast conditions delaying the programme of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who was to undertake an aerial survey of the affected areas in Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Uttarkashi districts.

About 1000 more pilgrims stranded in Rambara and Junglechatti areas en route to Kedarnath shrine in Rudraprayag district were sighted by security forces.

These people seem to have taken refuge in the gorges and ravines in these areas when the massive deluge occurred nearly a week ago.

Hungry for days, many of those sighted are ill and in need of immediate medical care, official sources said, adding the sick and ailing among them are being evacuated on a priority basis.

Apart from the 40 choppers in operation, the Rajasthan government has also given two choppers and 30 buses for evacuation of pilgrims.

The Gujarat government has also put into operation two chartered planes 747 Boeings (Jet Airways) with a capacity of 140 persons each to ferry pilgrims from the state stuck in high altitude areas to Ahmedabad.

A control room for pilgrims from Gujarat has been set up at Shantikunj Haridwar.

As the terrible magnitude of nature's fury continued to unfold and survivors spoke of untold miseries, the death toll was expected to rise with Uttarakhand Principal Secretary Rakesh Sharma saying casualty figures can be "shockingly high".

Death toll over 550

Nearly 600 people have been killed in the Uttarakhand flood devastation, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna yesterday said.

"(A total of) 556 bodies have been recovered and there are reports more could be buried under the debris," the chief minister said. "This kind of disaster has never happened in the Himalayan history."

He said it would "take a long time to rebuild Uttarakhand" and that no pilgrimage to Kedarnath would be possible for at least the next two years.

Debabrat Patra, ActionAid India's regional manager for Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said the situation in the hill state was "catastrophic".

"Our partners in the region have reported that nearly 5,000 people are still missing in Kedarnath, presumed dead," he said, in a grim forecast of what could turn out to be one of India's worst natural disasters.

Uttarakhand saw over 60 hours of continuous and heavy rains coupled with few incidents of cloudbursts at various locations June 14 to 17, which led to the flooding of the state's main rivers: Alaknanda and Bhagirathi.