The reel-life Enthiran has got emotions. But a real life Rajini seems to be callous to his own fans“He is like a God to me,” said Rajanikanth about Siva Sena chief Bal Thackarey. The Tamil superstar met Thackerey at his Bombay house while his blockbuster Yenthiran is making global ripples. He seemed to be head over heels over a man, who has gained notoriety for humiliating and kicking out South Indians (Madraassis as derogatorily called, and Tamils included) upon whom his entire fortune of superhuman stardom has been built.
What must have gone into his head while praising a man, whom civilization hasn’t touched a wee bit and whose only contributions to this world are shedding of innocent people's blood and miseries to many more? There’s little chance that his ardent fans will make a fuss if they come to know that their ‘God’ has equated a chauvinistic Thackerey to the real God. For one, public memory, as they say, is pathetically short. And even if they would be able to recollect the sons-of-soil militancy unleashed by Thackerey, such is their unflinching love for him that they would brush it aside.
When the film star equates this Hindutva-spouting demagogue, he has insulted tens of thousands of his own Tamil fans some of whom must have borne the brunt of Shiva Sena’s ugly war against the `outsiders’.
I used to respect Rajini, for his simplicity and down to earth nature, unlike those superheroes who live a life cut off from the real world. Even as the Enthiran was getting readied for release, Rajini appeared for his daughter’s wedding in full public glare without concealing the signs of ageing in stark contrast to the young and sturdy Enthiran. But now it appears to me that he's no different from Amitabh Bachchan; both sport a façade that smacks of hypocrisy.
