Rajni!

My friend Venky had over time educated me about the greatness of the man, about his strength, his courage, his empathy and love for the poor and above everything else, his complete control over his senses and faculties.
In "Baasha", Venky told me, Rajni decided to leave the violent life of a Mumbai underworld don behind, and become a simple autorickshaw driver in Chennai. There, a customer decides to pay Rs 0 after the commute, telling Rajni to "get lost". Rajni pleads with the customer, but to no avail. Its then that Rajni simply smiles at the arrogant upper class/caste fellow, moving away without so much as raising his finger. "There is only one man", said Venky, "just one man in the whole world who can do this". A little later, Rajni erroneously drives his rick into a thug infested chawl. A petty gunda calls Rajni over, and would you believe it, actually hits Rajni, even kicks him! "How dare you enter my area" he yells. Rajni, the ex-don, the all powerful super-hero simply looks on, smiles back and retreats. And Venky articulates with exagerrated emotion, " There is just one man in the whole world who can do that". It is during this period when Rajni is retreating that he notices the same gunda slapping a child. Now, that was something that he could not bear. He turns his rickshaw around, and gives a nasty pasting to the chap. "It was only after this that I started enjoying that movie", Venky says. "I tell you, I felt so very bad when people were ill treating our man".
After soaking up sustained pressure from Venky for more than two months, I finally succumbed. Today is not just another Sunday.. its my lucky sunday. Today, i get to watch the man that is popularly believed by most of the south to be the greatest man alive. Im going to watch a Rajnikanth movie! Its titled "Chandramukhi", and Rajni here is the infallible mind reader. I saw the movie through and through, and thought that it had the same basic theme, extolling all the great virtues of Rajni.
I have been thinking for quite some time now about the reasons for the love that people have for Rajni. And I decided that this was the weekend I would try and figure that out - by watching his movies. The South, by far, is the more prosperous portion of India. Be it the literacy levels, nutrition levels, or scores of other stastical measurements, the South is doing much better than the other parts of India. Its surely not true then, that there is some "brain-numbing virus" thats doing the rounds there.. we have brilliant people out there, and that is the reason most of the FDI comes directly into the lap of Karnataka or Tamil Nadu. No, theres got to be some other reason.
Anyway, after seeing the movie, my question still remained unanswered. There certainly was nothing in the movie to spark off such a craze. My conclusion - there was something in the people watching it! Tamil Nadu has most of the time had a film star as its CM, and the trend of worshipping their heroes started long back. Either it was Anna, or MGR, or some film star or the other. In each of their cases, you would find that their roles and films have been carefully crafted, each man trying to look more like a Robin Hood. In times of desperation, the masses in the South took solace from the kind heartedness that was shown to them by the super-heroes. Movies became more of a feel-good event, than entertainment. It is quite understandable then, that in Chennai, the density of pawn shops is higher close to movie theatres than elsewhere! This continued from the 50s, with the populace going through dire poverty, and very tough times. This generation might be seeing a more prosperous life, but some of the characteristics of the previous generation still lingers. In any case, my theory thus far is that all those hordes of people go to the cinema to feel good, and see one of their own beat up the bad guys, and have a man as great as Rajni look on at them with kind eyes.