New Delhi, May 17 -- In his first speech as chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Joseph Vijay said in Tamil, "I have known poverty; I've known hunger. I am not from some royalty." This whole country seems to be filled with self-made men. Except that most of them may not be at all.

I happened to be Vijay's classmate when we were around eight years old. Oddly, the reason why I remember him at all and could later recognize him as the same guy on film posters, is that he was the first rich boy I knew, at least rich by the standards of the Kodambakkam suburb of Chennai. Years later, when he was eighteen, he was cast in the lead role of a film that his father made.

Some of the biggest yarns of our times are tales of rags-to-riches.

Often, they are ...