AR Murugadoss meets Vijay, and Sarkar feels prophetic

The picture did the talking before either of them said a word. AR Murugadoss, arm around Vijay, the two of them grinning in a bright room, and a note from the director congratulating the newly sworn-in Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Within the hour it was everywhere, and the word attached to it was Sarkar.

That was the 2018 film the two made together, their third after Thuppakki and Kaththi, all three of them blockbusters. In it Vijay played Sundar, an expatriate businessman who flies home to vote, finds his vote already cast in his name, and turns that fraud into a political movement. Sundar wins. Then, right at the end, he refuses the Chief Minister’s chair and hands it to one of his own.

Reality went the other way. Vijay is the elected head of the Tamil Nadu government, sitting in the office the character he played wrote off. So when the man who scripted that arc turns up to congratulate him, the parallel almost writes its own caption, which is exactly what people did, replaying the film’s election stretch against the actual result.

The two have not worked together since Sarkar, and this was a courtesy call rather than any kind of announcement. But for a few hours it let an old collaboration and a very new chapter of public life sit in the same frame.