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Rajni the King and I: Alive and In Love
In the second part of Rajni and I, Rajnikanth's love-struck inamorata cracks just why everyones loves to love Rajni.BY KSHITIJ BISEN 11 July , 2007 Last night I dreamt I went to Mantralay. In the flowing mist, I heard his footsteps, crushing fallen autumn leaves, as Nat King Cole crooned somewhere in the distance. I turned around to find the road that had led me here. My steps faltered, I fell. The footsteps grew closer; my heart was pumping blood in my body with a force of ten horses. I lay low, fearing the worst. A hand tapped my tremulously tiny shoulders. His voice fell on my ears like an echo that has already done a hundred back and forths. “Come into my colourful world…” he beckoned, wiggling his eyebrows.
I woke up in cold sweat. The dream was ominous. I finally had a date with the man who I had put down as an ugly Nemesis. I brushed, shaved, and had a long, hot shower. Doused liberally with the strongest of my deos, I was slick enough to meet my match. Coconut oil dripping from my straggly strands of hair, I stepped out. The auto driver spoke perfect Tamil, and refused to switch off the loud FM radio, replete with the Suroors and Huzoors. They had to play that one song, “Huzoor aate aate, bahut der kar di…” roughly translated, Sir, you were very late in coming! Yikes. Isn’t it always better to come late? So I braved the rains, an unturned umbrella, and zillions of cars bent on splashing slush over my jazzy attire. It was a day of extremes; the stars were opposed to our tryst. But if he can wait for me, I must not be deterred. I made it to the theater in one piece. Not a bikini, but as a complete individual. The tickets were not an issue. I parked my scared behind nervously on my seat and waited. As I chomped on the hotdog with mustard, I mustered enough courage to watch Sivaji. Then it began. The RewardFirst scene. He walks out of a car in a veil the police put on him. Whistles, cat calls, and rah rahs reverberate in the theater. I look around. Not many people, but the reaction is nothing less than stunning. The sounds refuse to die down. Scene after scene, song after song, applause fills the cinema hall with its deafening prowess. I giggle, I watch, I sink in my seat, but what the hell. I am enjoying it. Not a word of Tamil makes sense to these Hinglish ears of mine, but I can understand everything that is happening. Almost. I am drawn to the sheer razzmatazz in front of me.
The plot of Sivaji is nothing new, though anyone who has seen the nine million and ninety ninth masala movie, will tell you it was different. Different it is, a Rajnikant I had never seen before. Yes, the cigarette flicks are replaced by a certain liquid filled chewing gum, which Sivaji pops in his mouth only after it rebounds on any object in front of him, including the villain’s forehead. Gone are the bullet splitting, the zhig-whig-schig karate moves. Our Sivaji is a software architect – a computer engineer for his simple parents. Sivaji is on a mission to build a medical school and facility that helps the poor and helpless. Having been an ‘enna rai’, he never anticipated the bureaucracy, the red tape, and the ulterior political motives that hinder his mission. Sivaji tries the honest way, and fails miserably. He tries the dishonest way, he loses everything he had. Even the woman of his dreams, who he had won with tons of buffoonery aided by his brother and his parents. When the white mundu-clad villain leaves him a rupee coin as alms, Sivaji transforms from this urbane, germane, hilarious city slicker into wild, roaring, angry, and still hilarious lion. They even have the roar of the lion as sound effects, and his hair magically resembles a billowing mane. Way to go; more claps and whistles. At this point I am beginning to see the light. Sivaji the Lion decides to turn the dirty game back on the face of all those who wronged him. Using devious tactics and plenty of goons, he screws the bad guys in his royal leonine manner. Since he hasn’t forgotten his high-tech, cutting edge stint abroad, he has every fraud covered as legit. Ah, don’t you wish you could beat somebody at their own game, too? I could find that connection taking shape in the womb of my consciousness. Pregnant with enlightenment, I keep watching. Rajni wins one battle after another against the corrupt. Till his wife betrays him to save him from imminent danger. But, Sivaji knows her noble intentions, and forgives her. Such a great soul, even after corrupting the corrupt, he has a heart of gold. Even when the villains corner him, his mind works like Chacha Choudhary’s – faster than his laptop with voice recognition. Sivaji risks his life, electrocutes himself, and with the help of a benign doctor ally is resuscitated, reincarnated as MGR. He returns, this time for the ultimate retribution - kill the bad guy. But he does not kill him, only beats him to pulp to die at the hands, nay, the feet of a student he had denied capitation fee waiver. The last fight sequence rounds off Rajni’s promise – total entertainer. The movie is over. I get up, looking at end credits. Many a common man’s dreams are captured as you see people swiping the Money Card for the poor. Dazzling. I must say. As I leave the theater, I see happy faces. Everyone is pleased, and chattering. I invariably whistle in Rajni style. It works. An auto stops immediately. Rama and Krishna
Rajnikant, as my Little Buddha pointed out, never makes anyone cry. No matter how bad situations get in his movies, he is forever the beacon of hope and humour. Which is true. I never felt a dull moment in Rajni’s company today. He is not the angry young man Amitabh Bachchan created in the times of bell bottoms. Rajnikant’s anger is coated with socialist sarcasm. Rajnikant is not afraid to beat the system from within, he doesn’t fight it as an idealist from outside. He can be as bad as the bad guys, only to kick their rears black and blue. Rajni is the new Krishna, not idealist, but a man who will achieve his goals with the help of illicit loopholes in the system. He is not Rama, who did everything right, as per the moral code of conduct. People are not moved by mighty speeches that beckon them to arise, awake, and take action. They’d much rather connect to someone who shows them how it’s done without the paraphernalia of ham. Through Rajni, people live vicariously--exacting retribution for all the wrongs they see around them. And all the while, have the time to laugh it all off as “bayen haath ka khel.” My Buddha also tells me about a research carried out a while ago, which demonstrated how the Hindi belt is far, far behind when it comes to watching movies. A Tamil movie lover has a huge appetite, and can easily manage 14 movies in a year, compared to just four by our average Bollywood aficionado. And even more hungry is the Telugu fillum fanatic, who can go up to 24 in a year. Now, this is an interesting fact, because Sivaji has been released only in Tamil and Telugu. Does this not ensure that our Rajni will have a hit, given how he makes his movies work, and how the audience makes it work for him? A Simple ManMy Buddha also tells me how Rajni turns his dark self into a caucasian delight. This is not to demean the presence of extra melanin in some people’s skin. It is purely situational, and Rajni gets his darker self back after a jumpy song on ‘stylah’. Just to clue you in to how much fair and lovely effort it took for him to undergo this makeover, you might want to read this piece. The superstar that Rajni is, he has never betrayed his roots. Despite the antics onscreen, Rajni never fails to crack a joke or two about his own self. Like the fairness example above, or the time when he is wooing his bride-to-be, or how in a song, he parodies his earlier gun slinging days. In real life too, Rajni never let his status overshadow his persona. He stays simple, quiet, and reserved. Like a true superstar, he is never sooperla superlative about his demeanour. He appeared at the preview of Sivaji as his self, sans make up, disheveled hair, and completely down to earth. And why indeed is he the king of the masses? For his roots. Pick up any character he has played so far, it is not the character people know, it is Rajnikant. People know only he can carry the antics off as no one else can. Stars like Amitabh Bachchan will forever be Vijay of Sholay, or Vijay Dinanath Chauhan of Agneepath. But it is Rajni first, and then Dalpathi, or Sivaji. People know where he comes from – for the masses, he is still the bus conductor whose capers made him popular on the streets of Bangalore. For them, he is the common man who has risen from among them to be the superhero, and yet has not forgotten the grounds he walked on. In a song, he chides the DJ to stop playing Gasolina, for him, the best way to set the screen on fire is bring out what he has been raised on. Haven't you seen people begging the DJ at discs to go desi? Now, if that is not slice of life, what is? Rajni and IYes, it is different in Rajni’s world. There is eternal hope, there is so much colour, not to forget pot-bellied extras with his face painted right where their pots’ diameter is the largest. It is an acid trip with all the psychedelia, but without the acid itself. Rajni leaves me bittersweet. Cupid is finally laughing his arrows off at me, or I am simply tripping. I sit down helpless as I sip my cup of evening tea. There’s a twinkle in my eye, a foolishly trembling smile, like Hema Malini’s lips, drums on my face. My playlist throws up I am Alive. Long Live Pearl Jam. Long Live Rajni. You’ve had me. End
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I
come back home. I make a desperate
call. I need to corroborate what I
felt. This time, it is a dissenter
from my own opinion so far. He is like
the Buddha, who offers me a little
more peek into Rajni’s different
world. I speak to him for a long time.
When I hang up, catharsis takes over.