The 65-year-old star who has made over 200 films has a new one, breaking box-office records and making fans giddy
By A.A.K. | BANGALORE
HE DEFLECTS bullets off his palm, catches grenades blindfolded, whips up a dust-storm with a whirl of his leg and hurls a bottle to kill the villain from a mile away. Meet Shivaji Rao Gaekwad, better known as Rajinikanth, or simply Rajini, a bigger-than-life Indian film star, revered by legions of fans across the country.
On July 22nd just before dawn, his well-wishers flocked to a temple in Mumbai to pray for the success of his new film, “Kabali”, a Tamil-language thriller set in Malaysia. In Chennai, Rajinikanth’s hometown, shows ran almost round-the-clock from 4.00am. In some cinemas, the audience performed a ritual by burning camphor inside a sliced pumpkin before smashing it near the screen when the words “Superstar Rajini” appeared.
His devotees fling garlands, coins and even banknotes when he makes an entrance on-screen, back or boot first. They dance in the aisles and bathe his posters with milk and honey. “It is our way to show respect,” says Sumukh SP, a diehard fan at Urvashi, a single-screen theatre in Bangalore which erupts every time Rajini delivers a line or when thugs dare insult him. The superstar, on occasions, calmly holds up his hand, breaking the fourth wall. More delirium.
Rajinikanth is no preening Bollywood star, but a balding 65-year old doyen of Tamil cinema who has acted in over 200 films, generally playing a lovable rogue. He is paid around $10m-12m a picture for this shtick. In “Kabali”, he is an ageing gangster, who serves 25 years in a Malaysian jail and returns home in search of his family. The flashback shows a young Rajini as a union leader fighting for the rights of the downtrodden Tamil minority in Malaysia. The political undertone of the film coincides with real India-wide protests in the streets outside by Dalits (formerly called “untouchables”), revolting against centuries of repression from the upper castes. Its director, Pa Ranjith, has denied any direct parallel, but has said that the story-line of “Kabali” “can be about any caste or community”.
Whatever the storyline, Rajini’s movies tend to do well. When they don’t, he is known to refund losses to distributors. “Kabali” needs no such rescuing. It raked in $16m on its opening weekend in India and another $12.6m overseas, smashing box-office records. On Friday July 22nd, tickets fetched 1,500-5,000 rupees ($23-$75) on the black market. A few companies in south India declared a holiday; AirAsia, a low-cost carrier, flew fans in planes with a Kabali-themed livery (Rajini’s face painted in super-size on the fuselage) for a special screening in Chennai. “It was like a carnival”, says Arun V, a consultant who drove from Bangalore to Chennai to catch the film.
What explains the madness for the doughy actor who romances ladies half his age? “Humility”, says Sunil K, during the movie’s interval as he takes a break from all the yelling. Unlike other actors, he doesn’t just wave from his balcony, says another fan. “He gets out and mingles with us.” Indeed, for all his onscreen brio and dash, the bus conductor-turned-superstar is a courtly man off it. He wears a white dhoti, drives his own car, sports no makeup, donates money to charity and pleads with his fans not to treat him like God.
They do it anyway. His superhuman feats have sparked Internet memes. It appears, for instance, that death once had “a near-Rajinikanth experience” and that Rajini’s pulse is measured on the Richter scale. On July 21st, a day before Kabali was released, the boss of KickassTorrents, the world’s biggest online piracy site, was arrested in Poland. For Rajini fans, this was no coincidence.
