The DMK might have given the Congress a tough time last week, after it threatened to pull out of the UPA, but a section of the Congress still holds admiration for Karunanidhi for an altogether different reason: His hard-working nature. “It is difficult to imagine the amount of work Karunanidhi does everyday even at his age. He still writes his own personal letters, editorials for the party's newspaper and movie scripts,” said a Congress manager, who knows Karunanidhi since the 1970s and was Congress’ key interlocutor with the Tamil patriarch.