Rajinikanth and the cost of stardom

Rajinikanth is worthy of each little bit of reward. Surviving, not to mention succeeding, 50 years within the Tamil movie trade deserves a celebration. However for what particularly? For appearing in round 170 movies in numerous languages, his display charisma, his politics, his influence on the lives of his followers?

Fifty years appears similar to yesterday when Rajini’s first film, Apoorva Ragangal (1975), launched him into historical past — though he was not the hero. He remade himself to swimsuit the wants of others. His title was modified, he learnt a brand new language, and placed on a brand new persona that was dictated by filmmaker Ok. Balachander’s imaginative and prescient of what he noticed in Rajini.

5 a long time in the past, he began the journey of changing into a cult determine by legitimising insurrection, making it doable to speak about wishes that have been taboos, talking for individuals who have been invisible and on the margins of society, and commenced the primary steps in the direction of fashioning a picture of himself. His latest film, Coolie, which released last week, commemorates these years. A lot has modified, however a lot stays unchanged. What has not modified is that like again then, he’s nonetheless making an attempt to placed on a brand new persona, making an attempt to be what he’s not.

It’s stated that the best worry of superstars is ageing. Whereas we have fun their longevity, they appear to dwell in mortal dread of it. The actual life image of a bald-headed Rajini makes him appear like our beloved uncle. In Coolie, he has a head filled with lush hair and fights like a younger man, though his eyes betray him. The identical highly effective eyes that Balachander commented on 50 years in the past now lie hidden in deep unhappiness, maybe reflecting the ache that he nonetheless has to do movies like this within the title of superstardom.

Perfecting the gray determine

Rajini was by no means outlined by his physique. He was darkish and slight, extra like a Bengaluru bus conductor — which he was earlier than he grew to become an actor. He was a Marathi speaker too, who spoke Tamil with a special lilt. Rajini’s energy and energy got here from what he spoke and stood for. He personified a easy however highly effective reality: that those that are poor and deprived have a larger ethical sensibility than those that possess wealth and energy. The vegetable sellers on the pavement, the day by day wage earners, the coolies in addition to the autorickshaw drivers exhibit far larger ethical qualities than do feudal landlords, wealthy entrepreneurs or highly effective leaders.

He was beloved as a result of he embodied that gray determine between socially acceptable behaviour and individually regressive one. He may very well be charming even when he was being politically incorrect. His viewers beloved him as a result of they knew that he was an ethical being at his core.

Followers dance throughout a screening of Rajinikanth’s Coolie
| Picture Credit score:
AFP

The coolie theme that was so crassly abused in his new movie was one which invoked deep emotions within the working class whose voice he represented in movies similar to Mullum Malarum (1978, a villager in battle with an city engineer), Baasha (1995, an auto driver), Muthu (1995, a servant beneath a feudal landlord), and extra lately, in Pa. Ranjith’s hit movie Kaala (2018) the place he fights for slum dwellers. The youthful Rajini acted like an older man, wiser, accountable, extra socially attuned, and one who produced hope.

Ethical ambiguities

Fifty years on, Rajini’s morality has aged. He’s not in a position to conceal this even when he succeeds in camouflaging the ageing of his physique. When he performed a gangster in Thalapathi (1991), there was a way of ethical code on this planet of criminals. However in Coolie, Rajini’s ethical sense disappears when he joins a younger lady in a prison act to justify getting cash to pay the charges for the medical schooling of the girl’s sisters. He’s not the Rajini that we noticed in Bhairavi (1978) or motion pictures like Aval Appadithan (1978), which catalysed a bigger dialogue on ladies’s rights and roles in a society.

A nonetheless from Thalapathi

Rajini was as well-known for his dialogues as for his cigarette methods as a result of these dialogues didn’t age. They didn’t want an outdated man, making an attempt to look younger with a mop of hair, to ship them. Rajini transformed these dialogues in motion pictures similar to Arunachalam (1997), Baasha and Padayappa (1999), into social slogans.

So long as Rajini speaks for the rights of the oppressed and the marginalised, his bodily age doesn’t matter. Being outdated is exhibited not in the best way we stroll or struggle, however in the best way we predict, within the vitality we’ve to struggle for the good thing about others, and within the hope that we convey.

Rajini, whereas nonetheless bodily explosive on the display, has aged mentally and morally, at the least in his previous few movies. He appears to have misplaced the qualities that made him perennially younger and related. We are able to’t blame him. Maybe he has develop into detached and drained. Similar to us.

The Bengaluru-based author and thinker’s new novel is titled Water Days.

Printed – August 22, 2025 07:17 am IST