Abbas , the mid – 90’s heartthrob of Tamil Cinema, took the
social media by thunder. The photos of him with his daughter- son- wife eating
out at a restaurant in Auckland (New Zealand) posted on social media. The
million dollar question that is doing the rounds is – Is Abbas’s daughter Emira
to act in films?. Is it the first step by circulating the photos? Though Aymaan
, Abbas’s son too features in the family get-together, it is Emira, who is the
cynosure of all eyes. To all those in their twenties, they keep seeing Abbas on Telly as the Harpic man who comes with the liquid to
clean the toilet and is welcomed by a woman who gushes oon seeing him. Later,
he came in a double role as Harpic
introduced two variants of the toilet cleaner. To those of us who witnessed his
entry in Kodambakkam, the woman’s welcome seemed to be in order.
Abbas in the mid 90’s danced his way to the hearts of Tamil
Audience with the Rahman song `Musthapha Musthapha’ along with Vineeth- Tabu in
Kadhal Desam. The entire Kollywood went into a tizzy. The tricky part of an
actor who tastes success is to sign films on the merit of the content and above
all the producer’s reputation in the financial market of filmdom. Like, it
happens to many who do not have a proper guide, Abbas who knew only Hindi-
English – Kannada and no clue of Kodambakkam signed projects that were from good
banners fallen on bad times and director’s who were one time the cat whiskers.
He on advice took advance from so many banners and only his manager knew who
they were. The second film VIP which had a good packaging of Prabhu Deva with a
two sexy lasses Simran and Rambha was well marketed by none other than by
Kalaipuli Thanu.
After this, Abbas was seen in films that did nothing to help
his career. We heard that he could not give dates for Kadhalukku Mariyadai that
gave Vijay a major blockbuster hit and the Shankar film `Jeans’. He happened to
actually land up in Kandukondai Kandukondain opposite Aishwarya Rai after
Prasanth (after Jeans) felt the role would not be right and was not willing to
be paired with Tabu. Abbas shifted to doing supporting roles. The next teen
sensation after Abbas was Maddy aka Madhavan with Minnale directed by Gautam
Menon and it had Abbas in a supporting role. They had paired together in a
Kannada and Tamil film.
In Tamil, his comic role in Pammal K Sambandam is still
rated as his career best. But I rate his career best as Kannuezhuthi Pottu
Thottu directed by T K Rajeev Kumar. He plays Moosakutty, a bangle seller in
the waterways of Kerala and love interest of the heroine Manju Warrier who
plays Gowri. The film’s musical score and the offbeat theme of how a woman uses
her sexuality to take revenge with the film ending with Gowri marrying
Moosakutty, made it memorable. Abbas just lived the role. A far cry from what
he had done till then and later in his career. Manju got special mention from
the National Film Award jury for her performance. In fact, Rajiv Menon had
approached Manju to play the Aishwarya Rai role but she could not come on board.
Abbas was always the `vellaikaran’ (whiteman) of filmdom for
his lifestyle and the way he conducts himself in public. His wife Erum Ali had
a boutique that was very popular and a nice interior too. He is a close family
friend of Kushboo. I parked my scooter in the parking lot of Spencers Plaza. I
saw Abbas and the attendant having a quarrel at the car parking lot. Abbas
wants to park his sports bike in the car park area as it costs much more than
of the cars parked in that lot. He cannot have guys dashing on his bike
etc. Finally, he agreed to pay for two
car tickets slot as it was a wide bodied one. As there is no Covid scare in New
Zealand, where he is settled, eating out and posting pixs of the two kids to us
guys holed up (as today is a total Lock Down in Chennai) is a good gesture. The
kids look great and so do you and Erum.
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