Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran or MGR-founder of the AIADMK founder and three-time chief minister, Bharat Ratna recipient-dominated Tamil Nadu's stratosphere for four decades. In this richly detailed biography of the man often called vathiyar or teacher, R. Kannan traces MGR's life from his early poverty-ridden years-a Class Three dropout-to his rise as a matinee idol, before becoming a politician of repute. He examines MGR's lifelong association with mentor Annadurai and other Dravidian cultural icons and his tumultuous political friendship with Kalaignar Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa, his cine heroine and political prot