There is an anecdote a film buff friend likes to tell during our nightly chats on cinema and other similar vices. He had a colleague, a Tamilian who happened to be at a soiree attended by Mani Ratnam and AR Rahman. As these two legends, film fans themselves, turned into excited teenagers talking about a certain K Balachander, a bystander wondered what the fuss was all about. He asked this friend of my friend if he knows who these gentlemen were talking about. Our man said with a lot of flourish, “Of course! It’s K. Balachander. He is like the Yash Chopra of Tamil cinema.” Mani Ratnam is said to have taken umbrage to this lopsided comparison. Balachander is not to be compared with anyone else, he said. That man stands on his own.