Leader of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Pirabakaran speaks about MGR How many know the fact that before he made his name in the Tamil movie world, MGR aspired to be an army man, in the then colonial India? But, he gave up on that idea for a technical reason! In January 1981, when I was a delegate at the Fifth International Tamil Research Conference held in Madurai, sponsored by MGR's then Tamil Nadu government, I received a souvenir entitled 'Spotlight on Tamil Nadu: Special Publication released on the occasion of The 5th World Tamil Conference'. In this souvenir, there appeared an interview-profile about MGR (pp.27-31), under the byline Copper Cochin, which I presume is a nom de plume of a foreign journalist. For this profile, MGR had provided some little known secrets of his life in 1930s as a struggling, bit-part actor. To quote, "MGR had a long period of being either out of work, or playing very small parts. When the chances of getting cinema roles were becoming bleak he learnt that...