A Sunday afternoon in Delhi. The television magnified to a 60 mm screen in a darkened theatre. And on the screen, a huge metal man. Or that’s what my near sighted eyes initially thought. Until I peered closer and saw that the huge, metal giant was made of miniature versions of one tiny man: Rajinikanth
As a Hindi-speaking woman born and brought up in Delhi, I guess I am what you would call a typical North Indian. So, the first Rajinikanth film I saw was Robot in 2011. (And yes, partly because of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, sue me.)
I had never seen anything like it before. My jaw dropped more times than I can count and I enjoyed every minute of it. It felt as if after years of darkness, I finally had a glimpse of what the Rajini fever is all about.
Thalaivar, The Unabashed Entertainer
In a country obsessed with films and the larger-than-life stars they spawn, ‘superstar’ is a word which is thrown around with abandon.
Almost everyone is a superstar. But for Rajinikanth, the word ‘superstar’ seems puny. Watching Robot and later Shivaji, I was awed at the sheer sense of joy and love with which the films were made. Robot, a film with very little pretension, unabashedly put Rajinikanth the superstar in the middle of the extravaganza, despite the drool-worthy VFX.
He is the hero, Dr Vaseegaran, a mild-mannered robotics expert who you remember for running away from a fight instead of cigarette-flipping swag. He is the villain, Chitti, the evil robot who decides to take over his creator’s life and falls in love with his love interest, Sana. And unbelievably (or maybe not), he is also the gigantic arsenal used in the fight between good and evil. It is popular cinema entertainment, at its finest.
Of Fans and Regional Cinema
I grew up on a steady diet of Hindi films, and even now nothing makes me happier than the prospect of watching a film. But as much as I admire Rajinikath, I am unable to declare myself his fan. For one, I simply can’t imagine the kind of devotion it takes to be a Rajinikanth fan. Milk bathing, mortgaging houses, committing your life to a fan club: stories about Rajnikanth’s fans are as legendary as the humble man.
More importantly though, I haven’t delved deep enough into his filmography. I am awed by Rajini, the superstar but still quite ignorant about Rajini, the actor because I haven’t seen his earlier films.
Like some of my friends who have been born in Chennai, I can’t trace the evolution of the Rajini phenomenon. Just as they haven’t seen enough of Amitabh Bachchan films to fervently admire his journey from Anand’s Dr Bhaskar to Deewar’s Vijay and finally, to Piku’s Bhaskor da.
Maybe it is about the need to be open to cinemas in different languages; maybe there is an argument to be made about how important regional-language films are to the idea of cinema in India.
But one thing is certain, Hindi or Tamil, films which are made with sheer love for the medium will find its audience. And that’s why, I think, Rajinikanth’s films are what they are. Because when it comes to brilliant entertainers, nobody does it like Rajinikanth.