25 years ago this day, a boy, with all his courage walked up to his father to say the words “I want to be an actor”. Little did the boy know that he would come this far when he timidly uttered these few words to his reluctant father. Little did he know that he would be the person that he is today.

“It’s easy to become an actor when you have a backup”, said a few. But the road was not easy. In fact, the road itself did not exist. The ‘dark, lean’ boy had to face everything that an 18 year-old shouldn’t have, and the path had to be dug and he had to lay his road, all by himself.

Yes, everyone undergoes that phase, but what made him special? What made him so close to common-folk? The answer is very simple: while every other actor tried to create a star within themselves, he worked to become a man among the crowd, one amongst the masses, because he felt normalcy was itself a luxury.

What is luck, then? If everything can be done through work, why is everyone not a superstar? Luck is nothing but a meeting point of the right opportunity and the right talent – one should never rely on luck alone or simply tag a person’s growth as luck without knowing how hard they strived hard to reach that place.

Forget the next superstar, how does one make a Thalapathy out of oneself? Through one’s jaw-dropping moves? Through one’s massy punch dialogues? Through one’s incredible, larger-than-life action sequences? Or through one’s unmatchable sense of timing? The answer is, it takes all this and much more. Sculpting and reinventing oneself time and again is essential, and this man has ticked all the boxes and creating new arenas for himself, slowly, steadily and most importantly, silently!

Be it Vijay or Joseph Vijay, Thalapathy or Ilayathalapathy, he will always be our Vijay Anna. He will always be that person with whom one can always empathize with, and he will always be that spark of light for every other normal person who wants to taste the sweetness of success.