Has Asin said goodbye to Kollywood?

The ladies who migrated up north

It is ironical to notice how language seems to have so little bearing on a lady’s entry into cinema. Kollywood has always had many leading ladies who do not have much of a grip on Tamil. It has become more prevalent now when every second debutant heroine is a model from Mumbai. One might think that Kollywood always borrows a lot from the fertile grounds of Bollywood where one gets trained camera savvy models ready for cinema. There is no denying this fact, but a point that is often ignored is how much Bollywood has borrowed from Kollywood over the decades. While Tamil cinema recruits fresh faces from the North, Hindi cinema attracts established actresses from the south. After a few years of success down south, going up north has been a sort of logical progression though not many have made that transition successfully. But, those who managed to get a toehold in Bollywood never came back, or should we say that they never got the chance or the time to come back to Tamil, one cannot be sure.
There are many examples to show how many heroines from Kollywood have migrated up north. Vyjayanthimala Bali was perhaps the first to show that such a transition was possible in spite of language concerns. Vyjayanthimala did not have to do many movies in Tamil before her chance in Hindi came knocking and she never looked back, becoming one of the top stars of the industry. The biggest of all however was Sridevi’s move to Bollywood after a hugely successful few years in Tamil. Though in her initial years at Bollywood she did manage to make herself available for a few select Tamil movies, once into the mid-eighties her stardom touched new heights giving her no room to accommodate Tamil assignments. Even if she did, they happened once in a blue moon. Of all those who migrated to Bollywood from the south, only Jaya Prada can claim to have balanced work between two industries, Hindi and Telugu.
The above mentioned actresses are only those who managed to find success in Bollywood. There are many others who took the plunge but were not lucky enough to see success that could sustain them in Bollywood for long. Shriya’s recent attempts are good examples, the young lady has not yet hit on a script that can put her in a position akin to what she enjoys in Kollywood. Simran, Naghma, the late Soundarya, Ramya Krishnan and many others have had a roll of the dice in Bollywood, with varying degrees of success, none enough to fuel further progress and thankfully they returned to Kollywood. But, not one actress who has found success has been able to return. It is in the same spot that Asin now stands. Her debut has received tremendous praise, she has become an overnight star. Her debut was with a Khan and her second movie is with another Khan, she has signed her third movie opposite a youth sensation and all the while we have not heard of her signing up any new Tamil movie. The best we heard was about a movie by Walt Disney with Kamal, but we doubt whether that will be in Tamil. So, the question is, have we seen the last of Asin in an original Tamil movie? Hope not.