Why Rajinikanth is Thalaivar of the masses
Rajinikanth turns 67 today. Rajinikanth turns 67 today.
Every year on December 12, fans of Tamil cinema have a strong and emotional reason to be thankful for. Christmas comes early in Tamil Nadu with streets dotted with big posters and cutouts of India’s biggest superstar Rajinikanth. It is celebration time for fans as on this day, their favourite actor was born and they can’t just be thankful enough.
Not many actors in their lives achieve the star status. Only some become superstars and manage to retain their market position for a long period of time. A couple of bad Fridays, the ground beneath the superstars begin to shake and threaten to sink them into oblivion. The audience may get bored of repeatedly seeing certain acts and move on to the next star on the block. But, only a few can manage to achieve the status in the hearts and minds of the audience like Rajinikanth has done. His position is so strong in the industry that even when he goes missing from the big screen for three years or more and give flops in a row, no one can challenge his box office supremacy.
Rajinikanth has monopolised the market when it comes to the loyalty of fans. Rajinikanth fans are of a different kind. It is as if celebrating Rajinikanth and his films are the only thing that brings meaning to their lives. I know of fans personally, who stopped quarrelling and talking disrespectfully with their parents because Rajinikanth said so in his films and public speeches.
Back in the day, worldwide release of films was not a norm of the day. Tamil films usually released in Karnataka a week or so after it opened in Tamil Nadu. And I know of fans that travelled to the neighbouring state to just catch the first-day first show of Rajinikanth films.
Rajinikanth is where he is today not only because of his acting skills or his ability to flip a cigarette straight into the mouth or his brisk walk or various other signature styles of his. The backbone of his world are his fans. The fans who spend their savings on organising celebrations outside the theaters in the run-up to his films. The fans who carry out social welfare programmes in his name and add more weight to his ever-growing popularity. And they do all this and much more, just to show how much they worship him. Rajinikanth is their religion and the words he speaks are the God’s truth.
An outsider may wonder why fans love. Scratch that. Worship Rajinikanth so much. What did he ever do to them to derve so much of love, fame and attention from millions and millions of fans? Maybe because he showed the fans a dark-skinned man can be a hero. He came as a confidence booster to fans at a time when films were typecasting actors with dark-complexion in the roles that depicted ugliness and villainy.
His natural appearance made people accept him as one of them. He became the Thalaivar of the masses by playing characters like a coolie, farmer, waiter and auto rickshaw driver and reduced the wealthy cocksure characters in his films to their knees. In a way, he represented the aspirations, anger, dreams of working-class people in his films. They saw him as one of their own and gradually became his disciples.
Why do you think legendary director K Balachandran rechristened Shivaji Rao Gaekwad as Rajinikanth? Rajinikanth means ‘colour of night.’
Even at 67, he never misses to amuse his audience or contribute to the growth of the industry. He made his debut in a black and white film in 1975 and has been setting trends in embracing path-breaking technologies in filmmaking. He was the first Indian actor to star in the animated film, Kochadaiyaan, which was shot using motion capture technology. And his upcoming sci-fi film is the first Indian film to be shot in the 3D format directly. No other actor in India can inspire film producers to spend Rs 400 crore just to make one film. Only Rajinikanth can.
2018 is going to be a very eventful year for the fans of Rajinikanth as two of his films, 2.0 and Kaala, will release and he may also take his much-awaited plunge into politics.
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