Ram Gopal Varma (RGV) has stirred up a hornet’s nest, actually many hornets’ nests, as only he can by claiming that Dulquer Salman is a better actor than Mammooty. For the ignorant amongst you, Mammooty is a superstar in the Malayalam movie industry. His career spans about 30 odd years and his movies garner a high opening even today. Dulquer Salman is about a couple of years old in the industry with a string of good movies and hits under his belt. RGV is a has-been director whose movies nobody cares about any more. So there, the stage is set for me to defend RGV.
Every father looks at his child and wishes the best for the little one – at least most fathers I know do. I am sure Amitabh Bachchan looked at Abhishek and dreamt of the numerous mega hits his son would churn out. Sunil Gavaskar must have taken young Rohan to cricket practice and imagined sitting in the stands and applauding as his son guided India to victory. On his part, I don’t think Mammooty regrets his son’s success.
In fact, RGV has paid Mammooty the highest compliment through this statement. Maybe Dulquer is a better actor, and then again maybe not. Who cares! The bottomline is that Mammooty, if he so values RGV’s certificate, can now rest in the knowledge that indeed the child is the father of the man. “The torch has been passed to a new generation”, as Kennedy said, and the generation is proving that it can carry the torch.
As for RGV, if he meant the compliment to Dulquer as an insult to Mammooty, that tells us more about RGV than it does about the talents of Mammooty or Dulquer and our sympathies with RGV’s son, if he is any better than his father is at filmmaking.
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