When Queen Elizabeth II launched Kamal Haasan's 'Marudhanayagam'

During her second visit to India in 1997 after attaining the British throne, Queen Elizabeth II attended the launch of the shooting of legendary Indian actor Kamal Haasan’s magnum opus Marudhanayagam, a film based on the 17th-century warrior, and spent 20 minutes on the set.

As the Queen passed away on Thursday at the age of 96, Kamal Haasan paid rich tributes to her and recalled her visit to the sets of Marudhanayagam at the MGR Film City in Chennai. “Probably, it was the only film shooting that the Queen attended,” Kamal Haasan wrote on his verified Twitter page on Friday.

The film icon also posted a picture of him meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace in London in 2017 during a cultural event. “She attended the shooting of Marudhanayagam 25 years ago at our invitation…I vividly remember the meeting I had with her 5 years ago,” the actor wrote.

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Later, the actor told reporters that the Queen had come to India as a representative of Britain that had moved away from its colonial mindset.

The Queen, who was on a visit to Chennai as part of her India trip, visited the MGR film city to launch Marudhanayagam, which was to be made at a cost of Rs 85 crore. The Queen posed for pictures with Kamal Haasan, who was playing the lead role in the film and spent over 20 minutes on the film’s sets.

The event was attended by then Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi, legendary Tamil actor Sivaji Ganesan, and political commentator ‘Cho’ Ramaswamy, among others. Marudhanayagam is a dream project of Kamal Haasan and is yet to see the light of the day, apparently due to financial issues.

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Kamal Haasan never misses a chance to talk about the film and has even sung a song from the yet-to-be-made movie along with music maestro Ilaiyaraja.

Marudhanayagam, born as a Hindi and converted to Islam, is a hero who is praised for his valour but criticised for his association with the then British regime, against whom he fought later.