Kovai street where Makkal Thilagam walked barefoot

“Can you believe Thalaivar had hair till his shoulders?” asks Saminathan. Now in her 60s, R Malliga recalls her aunts saying that many cine stars used to stay in the locality and they admired MGR. “He was their dream man,” she said with a smile. “He used to give us Ellu Urundai (sweet made of sesame seeds). Thalaivar used to say it is bitter but good for health,” says 74-year-old Raju before adding that many people in that locality were closely associated or had something to remember about MGR. He lived in a rented house on Velmurugan Street in the 1940s. 

“He found it difficult to pay the monthly rent of 50 ps,” recalls T Damodharan (66). Former villain actor, stunt man and martial arts expert Sandow MMA Chinnappa Thevar of Olymbus spotted MGR during a film shoot in a studio in Coimbatore in the 1940s. It was he and his brother Subbaiah Thevar who helped MGR to become a hero. They trained him in martial arts at ‘Sri Veera Maruthi Dhega Payirchi Salai’ that Chinnappa Thevar established with his friends. 

“Chinnappa Thevar and MGR acted together before Thevar started producing films for MGR. He produced 16 films and the last one was Nalla Neram in 1972,” says Chinnappa Thevar’s nephew N Gandhirajan (71). The last time MGR walked through the narrow streets of the locality was in 1978, when he attended the funeral of Chinnappa Thevar. 

While returning from the burial ground on foot he wanted to have a glimpse of the house close to the gym where he lived before he shot to stardom. The pairs of dumbbells, three club bells of various weights and push up handles are among the equipment that are still maintained and used in the gym. 

A pairs of swords, silambam sticks, bending sword and knives are among the weapons MGR had used in the gym. “We perform with the weapons in his style during the gym’s annual day celebrations that is more than 75-years-old,” its trustee K Eswaran (48) said. The gymnasium and the marriage hall attached to it have a good collection of pictures of MGR.