[Rajinikanth,
the actor’s stage name, was born Shivaji Rao Gaekwad in southern India, the
son of a police constable. He acted in school plays, but later worked as a
railway porter, a carpenter and a ticket seller on public buses. One day a
movie director spotted him on stage, which led to his first role, playing an
abusive husband, in 1975. A decade later, he was being hailed as a “superstar.”]
By Rama Lakshmi
 |
|
Indian fans of movie idol
Rajinikanth pour milk on his cutout, a devotional practice,
at the opening of his new
film, “Kabali,” at a theater in Mumbai on Friday.
Some Indian businesses
gave workers time off to see the movie to preclude
absenteeism. (Divyakant
Solanki/European Pressphoto Agency)
|
CHENNAI, India — The cinema gates opened
before dawn here, home of the Tamil movie star Rajinikanth and ground zero of
the nationwide frenzy surrounding the release Friday of his latest action epic.
Hundreds of fans shoved their way in as firecrackers burst and car stereos
blared one of the movie’s hit songs, “This Is Fire, Dude!”
Then came the bad news: All the tickets were
sold out. For the next two weeks. The fans, chased out by police, were
heartbroken.
“If I don’t get to watch my favorite star’s
new movie on the ‘first day, first show,’ there will be a big black hole in my
life,” said Sundar Vaidyanathan, 27, wiping away tears. “After my parents, it
is superstar Rajinikanth who is most important to me.”
India’s movie industry is the biggest in the
world, producing more than 1,600 new films a year in more than 20 local
languages. And Rajinikanth is the biggest star in that firmament, if sheer,
over-the-top fan mania is the measure.
He is no superstud. At 65, he is balding and
sports unkempt gray stubble. Yet he is so beloved — he boasts 3 million Twitter
followers — that his movie release dates are anticipated in India like national
holidays.
In Chennai, some companies gave employees the
day off Friday so they could go see “Kabali,” Rajinikanth’s first film in two
years. Others had booked entire cinemas for their staff. Air Asia flew 180 fans
to the city for the first-day showing in a plane custom-painted with the
star’s likeness. One county was giving away free tickets to people who pledged
to install an indoor toilet, taking advantage of the movie’s popularity to
address the issue of widespread public defecation.
“Rajinikanth is not a human being. He is not
an actor. He is [a] god,” said S. Thanu, the producer of “Kabali.”
The movie, a gangster action drama, has been
released on 10,000 screens around the world, including more than 400 in the
United States and several in Britain, China, Malaysia and Japan. More than 20
million people viewed the pre-release trailer on YouTube in just two weeks. But
the real madness takes place in India.
“Even in a land where films, and superstar
actors, play larger-than-life roles in social, cultural and . . .
political life, there has been nothing to compare with the Rajinikanth
phenomenon,” said N. Ram, chairman of the Hindu group of newspapers here. The
star’s “panache, style and iconic one-liners fire up his fans and immediately
become part of popular culture and lingo,” Ram added.
Rajinikanth, the actor’s stage name, was born
Shivaji Rao Gaekwad in southern India, the son of a police constable. He acted
in school plays, but later worked as a railway porter, a carpenter and a ticket
seller on public buses. One day a movie director spotted him on stage, which
led to his first role, playing an abusive husband, in 1975. A decade later, he
was being hailed as a “superstar.”
His signature moves — the flick of his hair,
the way he would toss his cigarette and flip his sunglasses, his guffaw — lent
him a macho, rough-and-tough aura. In real life, his fans say, Rajinikanth is
a simple man who eschews his larger-than-life persona. Unlike many other aging
movie stars, he does not hide his baldness with a wig and avoids public events
and TV commercials.
The contrast between his on-screen swagger
and his real-life humility and “ordinariness” is the reason his fans adore him,
Ram says.
In “Kabali,” set in Malaysia, the star plays
a former Indian trade-union leader turned gangster who is seeking revenge on
his gang foes after 25 years in prison.
“It is a different kind of hysteria this
time, because they are seeing Rajinikanth play a role that is his real age,”
said Pa. Ranjith, the movie’s director. “He is not the romantic, young, dancing
hero in my film.”
But Rajinikanth’s trademark style is intact
in the film. At a showing Friday, fans screamed deliriously at every one of his
outlandish stunts. They howled with anger when the villain beat him, and they
chanted “style king,” “boss” and “leader.” It did not matter that the dialogue
was drowned out in the din.
“I am watching the film today for the
unmatchable energy in the hall. It feels like the roof will fall in,” said
Balaji Ram, a 30-year-old software engineer. “I will come back and watch it
with my family again to focus on the story, acting and dialogue. I usually
watch his films 10 times.”
The image of invincibility that surrounds the
star has generated jokes depicting him as a superhero who can run faster than
light and stop tsunamis and speeding trains by just exhaling.
“In so many movie roles, Rajinikanth starts
off as an absolute nobody but goes on to become powerful,” said Smitha Sarma
Ranganathan, a brand and marketing expert. “He offers people the idea of
possibility. He is the adrenaline shot that people need to aspire.”
Religious rituals often accompany the release
of Rajinikanth’s films. Fans shave their heads and offer special prayers in
temples, distribute sweets, throw coins at the screen when he appears, and
bathe his giant cardboard cutouts with milk — although that last practice is
being discouraged this year because of high milk prices.
On Friday, many fans lingered outside
sold-out cinemas with long faces.
Asked why he had braved the long lines for a
chance to see the movie on its release date, Anthony Rajkumar, 26, a marketing
executive, said, “If your wife gives birth to a child, would you wait a few
days to see the baby?”
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