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Rajinikanth: Fans and their frenzy for the superstar
Rajinikanth brought in his 74th birthday on December 12.

Published
2 months agoon
By
CB Desk
By Jyothi Venkatesh
Fan frenzy is not something that is new today. It has been proved by the sad death of a housewife in Hyderabad during the premiere of Allu Aravind’s latest blockbuster Pushpa 2. Even way back in 1978, when Kamal Hassan invited me for his wedding to my cousin Vani Ganapathy in Mumbai, Rajnikant was as humble as he is today. I remember him asking me to accompany him to Gandhi Market in Sion to buy clothes for him and we used to do the shopping without any star frenzy because he was then just two years old in the film industry.
Rajinikanth commands a huge fan following in Kerala. Even the state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is a big fan of Rajinikanth took a break from his busy schedule to watch his movie Jailor in a multiplex in the state which caught everyone’s imagination in Kerala. The CM’s theatre visit is a small example of the kind of popularity that the movie is enjoying among the public.
Last year, Rajinikanth reached Kerala to join the sets of director TJ Gnanavel’s next movie, Vettaiyan. Besides Rajinikanth, the film boasts a huge star cast, including Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan. The two icons of the Indian film industry shared the screen space after a gap of so many years, after acting together in movies like Geraftaar (1985) and Hum (1991).
Not only did several South India companies declare a holiday for their employees on the release date of his film Kabali, some companies even gave out free tickets to see the show. A crazy fan was so distraught in 2011 over the news that Rajini was having lung and liver problems, that he took matters into his own hands and made an attempt to commit suicide. He felt he could help the actor by overdosing on sleeping pills so that his hero could take his kidney.
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Yet another superfan of his from Chennai called G. Mani was featured in the documentary ‘For the Love of a Man’ for his annual public Rajini celebrations every year consecutively on December 12th. He has also gone on record that he sells his wife’s jewellery in order to pay for the big street party event.
40-year-old Sreenivasan Jayaseelan wasn’t able to meet Rajini in Chennai, but when he heard that the actor was on his way to a shoot in Hong Kong, he wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity. He swiftly booked a ticket for him and his family to see his idol, spending, believe it or not, 1.5 lakh. “Money is nothing in front of my God. We got to breathe the same oxygen as our Thalaivar for a few hours on the flight. What else do we need,” he said.
When Kabali was released, the same fan said to have watched 10 back-to-back showings in the theatre. Believe it or not, he claimed to have spent a whole day inside the cinema complex.
Rajini, even way back in the 90s, was nothing less than a demigod. Starting from Thalapathy in 1991 to Padayappa in 1999, it was a decade of his peak. I’m not talking about gross collections or fan wars. This was a time before social media. It was just pure madness for this one-man army.
I’ve seen a few posts about how the new super star Vijay has reached or even surpassed Rajini. Vijay currently, even as Vijay has announced his exit from films to embrace politics by floating his own political party, yes, he pulls in the crowds, gets the numbers, and has a huge army of fanboys ready to defend him on social media. But it’s maybe 10% of what Rajini was in his peak. Do remember, Vijay now is how old Rajini was when he did films like Arunachalam and Padayappa. Really puts things in perspective, but all said and done, we should not forget that Vijay is still leagues apart from Rajini.
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