To rise back from the ashes is always special and it doesn t happen for everyone.Among birds, Phoenix does it. And among human beings there are a few phoenix birds. The two famous ones of the small lot of individuals are Sourav Ganguly and Ajith kumar. While the first one did it in cricket-the passion of India, the second person has done it many times in Tamil cinema – the passion of Tamilnadu.


Before I give my comments on their phoenix acts, I feel that there are a few striking similarities between the two, which is why there are more than 1400 tamilians in the ‘DADA n THALA’ community at Orkut. Their careers started at almost the same period of time if we can ignore the inconsequential Ganguly s fly down under in1992 and the insignificant Ajith debut with a telugu film in 1993.

Ganguly showed the world his entry by sculpting a century on debut at Lords and followed it up with another at Trentbridge ending up Joint Man of Series in his first test series. Likewise Ajith showed promise in his initial films like amaravathi, Aasai,Kallori vasal and Kadhal kottai which were huge successes. But like how Ganguly shared his success with Dravid(who also played well in England), Ajith had to share the successes with Prakashraj, Devayani, Prashanth etc.


With consistent performances, both gained individualities in their respective professions. Ganguly became a household name of India with his blitzkrieg in the shorter version of the game and with movies such as Vanmathi, Kadhal kottai and Kadhal mannan Ajith became the heart throb of Tamil divas. Then came the huge turning points in either s careers.

The year 1999 saw some sterling performances from ganguly s timber. He had scores of

• 130* (against SL)
• 97(In world cup against SA)
• 183(In world cup against SL)
• 153*(against NZ at home)



In the same year Ajith proved his mettle with films like
• Aval varuvala
• Amarkalam
• Vaali
• Unnai thedi

The bullets of both heroes have been marked for comparison.



Then in 2000 Ganguly showed his class with a 100 and a swashbuckling 141 against the mighty aussies and the ever hungry Pakistanis in CUB series at Australia.Getting such hundreds in the island continent is considered prestigious by cricketers. Likewise, working in a film with Mamooty, AR Rehman and the influential Aishwarya rai Tabu combo was a prestigious one ..and that happened to Ajith in exactly the same year.



The most enthralling of all coincidences between the two come here. Ganguly first biggest achievement as a captain, defeating Australia by having a comeback from 0-1 to 2-1 took place in MARCH 2001.Guess what??..Ajith became a MASS hero with Dheena which released in Jan 2001. It initially was trailing behind Friends (Like 0-1) but finally at around the same March 2001 it took off to the no.1 spot in the box office.Another strange and the least significant coincidence.The news media made remarks of Ganguly having an affair (Which still has no big proofs) with Nagma who was incidentally cast in two ajith films Citizen and Dheena at the same time!!

Then Ganguly had a sudden slump in form at the same time when Ajith had his own bad time with movies like Raja and Red not doing great. Then ganguly hit a few centuries to make a small comeback to form in the World cup at the time when Ajith s Villain was
Enjoying its 100 days run..and it was Ajith s comeback as well..

Later the media was very rough and unsympathetic to both Sourav and Ajith and till now that has been the case.The worst thing in Ganguly s career was the spat he had with his old advisor Greg Chappel which made him getting dropped from the side in December 2005. And in mid 2005 it was the spat between Ajith and his one time close buddy Nic ARTS chakravarthy that made business for news magazines across Tamilnadu.

Now,now, both these men have proved their critics that they are not losers and ve made the critics eat back their words.They made their biggest of comebacks.Ganguly came back with scores of 51*,47,66 at SA following it up with 98,68,58,48,62* in the series’ against WI and SL. For Ajith it was a slow exponential curve on the rise with Paramasivan, Thirupathi and then the curve peaked with a Blockbuster in Varalaru.



Now I come to one of their big pluses.The HUGE AND CRAZY FAN FOLLOWING that these stalwarts have is synonymous of how significant their phoenix acts have been.Both the ultimates are open minded and straightforward. Just speak out whats in their mind..Thats wat has earned them so many fans like us...After Superstar it is Ajith that has a huge fan base in TN. Similarly the fan base of Sourav is comparable with that of the person hailed by the media-Sachin tendulkar.

I would want you all to tell me how true these similarities are.Do u feel the same after reading this?!.Pour in ur suggestions.