rajini and 'shivaji'

'Only pigs come as a herd! A lion always comes alone' - Shivaji

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Although Rajinikanth, known as Rajini, is a 58 year old grandfather from Bangalore and married to a school teacher, he is also the undisputed superstar of Tamil cinema and a cultural icon in South India for the last twenty years. He lives in Chennai (which is where I am now) and performs in everything from comedy and drama to action films, and his followers border on being fanatics. Loyal fans scream, shout, and whoop, whenever he is on screen, and won't hear a word said against him. According to the IMDB: 'directors cannot kill off his character in a movie for fear that the theatre will be burnt down by his crazed fans who consider him almost a god. He is said to explode like a tiger on screen.' He came to my recent attention in Ooty when I went to see his new film: 'Shivaji - the Boss,' his first in two years, and reputedly the most expensive Indian film ever made. The son a police constable Rajini was first employed as a bus conductor before he joined the Madras Film Institute and got into movies and is seen by many as a hero of the lower classes.
Rajini's personal appearance is striking and unmistakable. He's not particularly tall and very slightly chubby. He looks his age. He has a huge white smile which he flashes every few seconds and a pair of black shades which are surgically attached to his face. He has a black moustache. His enormous black hair, which is not dissimilar in size and style to the stage wig which Gary Glitter used to wear, is curiously detached from his head and seems to have a life all of its own. It's almost an independent organism in itself operating separately and in a different time to the rest of his body. He often wears black leather jackets and trousers, or clothing you would more readily associate with a 20 year old or even a teenager.
Rajini also has a number of trademark actions which feature in his films and these include flicking coins, acrobatically bouncing chewing gum around (he's doing that all the time - and it gets a big cheer from the crowd), and swapping guns from hand to hand whilst flying through the air (he also swaps pens like this if he is signing a contract or writing a note).
In the film 'Shivaji' itself (part of which was shot at Ramoji Film City), Rajini plays an Indian millionaire called Shivaji who having made a fortune in America (in the computer industry) has returned to India to build a free hospital and university for the poor. His philanthropy is made evident from the very beginning when on the way back from the airport a poor woman with a baby begs him for money. He gives her a massive wad of cash, and then turns to his assistant looking disgusted and says in Tamil something along the lines of: 'I'm gonna sort all this out. Things are going to change around here.' Things don't run smoothly though because rival businessman Adisheshan (the villain) is not happy about Shivaji's return and plots to destroy him by bribing local politicians. By the film interval he has almost succeeded, and Shivaji is left with only one rupee to his name and the hospital/university project has to be put on hold.
While all this is going on Shivaji romances and marries the beautiful Shreya who is bowled over by Shivaji despite the fact that he is old enough to be her father's father and wearing a wig that would rival Louis XIV for size. She is initially hesitant because an astrologer has told her that if she gets married her husband will be killed soon after (Shivaji does later die briefly as part of his plan to win his money back but is soon brought back to life - it's too complicated and silly to explain). There's plenty of comedy in the film, mostly revolving around the romance with Shreya, including a scene where Shivaji eats fifty chilli's to prove his love, and also - after she tells him he is too dark skinned to marry her - a sequence where he is transformed into a white man complete with blond hair.
In the second half of the film Shivaji wins back double his money, kicks Adisheshan's backside, eradicates poverty in India, and is near enough proclaimed a modern day messiah. Throughout the film Shivaji repeats his catchphrase which is to say his own name, pause, and then add: 'cooooooool' after whilst smiling broadly and smugly.
'Shivaji,' like Rajini, is pretty ridiculous but I enjoyed it much more than any of the Hindi Bollywood films I've watched in India. In fact, I thought it was brilliant. By comparison, the characters in the mainstream Bollywood movies ('masala movies') seem to be almost, dare I say it, ashamed to be Indian and keen at every turn to demonstrate their 'western-ness.' Rajini and his characters are proud to be Indian, and do things their own way. I like that and I think it is a more healthy way for an Indian movie to be. There's more integrity and less cultural insecurity. This aside Rajini also has an irrepressible energy on screen which is infectious. If you would like to see some poster images of Rajini take a look at my photos from Ooty, or alternatively have a look at this website:

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http://www.sivajitheboss.com