Kabali, The Last Superstar

I haven't watched the movie yet, but a helpful family member - my mama's cousin's daughter-in-law's nephew - sent us a full movie download link on Whatsapp. It works, I checked; but I didn't download the movie, as I've sworn allegiance to Thalaivar and Tamil Cinema.

When Rajini Became Superstar

I wasn't always like this. Like many of my TamBrahm friends, I looked back at the days of Mannan, Thalapathy and Annamalai (or his funnier side in Thillu Mullu), and thought of them as Rajini's glory-years, before he sold out to his Superstar avatar. Although he always lived in the shadow of Kamal Hassan in our minds, that's the closest he had come to being the real king of cinema.

"Amma Enrarazhaikaatha..." from the film Mannan

When Padayappa killed it in the Box Office in '99, Rajini quickly shifted gears and became the South India's biggest and only real superstar. In the next few years, he released Chandramukhi (Bhool Bhulaiya, in Hindi), Sivaji - The Boss, Enthiran... each opening in more theatres globally than its predecessors. Packed with elaborate unbelievable plot-lines and trademark Rajini punch-dialogues (delivered like only Rajini can deliver), and riding on his highly affable personality, Tamil cinema thrust itself on the national stage.

North India watched, not in awe, but clutching its belly in laughter: Rajini stopped bullets, Rajini conquered Mars, Rajini could change the laws of Physics. I remember distinctly how it irritated me when people laughed at Rajinikanth - someone they had never watched in theatres, because of SMS forwards which were not even true. For the first time in my life, I defended this man - not because I admired his acting, but because it threatened my identity. Suddenly, Rajinikanth was part of who I was.

I watched Enthiran alone in the theatre...

The inaccessibility of Tamil cinema outside Tamil Nadu and major metropolitan cities creates a barrier for even the most ardent fans. For a travelling, English-speaking, semi-fan like me, who finds it easier to name Hollywood films than films in Hindi or Tamil, it is almost impossible to follow Kollywood.

Given Rajini's stature, he was one of the few (probably the only) actors whose films were screened in smaller Indian cities up North, at least dubbed in Hindi. During my college days, news about Rajini films became my only connection to Tamil Nadu, to Chennai and my childhood. I made it a point to watch his films, and say nice things about it.

Saying good things about Rajini felt like patting yourself on the back, happy that you'd enjoyed what your childhood friends had enjoyed, wherever they were in the world. You could enter Sathyam cinemas, knowing nothing could go wrong in the next two hours. After all, they did a paal abhishekam outside to ward off evil spirits.

And so I went to watch Enthiran, long after everybody else had, alone, with a Rs. 120 ticket in Sathyam. I've never gone to a theatre alone since, but that day I had an incredible shared-experience with strangers I couldn't see in the cinema hall. *wolf whistles*

The Rajini Effect

While the great Indian emigration, specifically the emigration of Tamils, started a long time ago, it received that massive push in 1991, that changed things as we know. The kind of push that ensures you and your friends will find yourself outside Chennai, probably outside Tamil Nadu, and possibly outside India, a few years after school.

This, however, also ensured that all of us carry a bit of home, and therefore a bit of Rajini, to every corner of the globe. And suddenly, people in Europe, Japan and Houston were mouthing the words - "Naan oru tharava sonna, nooru tharam sonna madhiri".

My friend's startup, that designs T-Shirts, came up with designs like this one, that I purchased:

Some things happen once, and only once, and never happen again. Rajinikanth is our last superstar. Rajinikanth - the phenomenon - will end, and there will never be a Rajini again. When will there be another time, when such mass-migration will take niche pop-culture to every corner of the globe?

The reason we all feel connected by Rajini, and can share the Rajini-experience wherever we are, is because we started in an age that wasn't as connected, and grew into the information age carrying our mini-cultures with us. There will never be another Rajini, because the beginning of the Information Age has ended, and we've lived through it already. There will never be another Rajini because our idea of home has forever changed. There will never be another Rajini because we cannot imagine another age where we can share a veg puff at a shady roadside teashop, trying to wear a pair of round -3.50D spectacles Rajini-style.

Rajinikanth, who I never admired in my childhood, is now a part of me. I have the option to watch the full Kabali movie right now, by clicking on a link on Whatsapp. But I won't. Because Kabali is more than a movie, Rajinikanth is more than an actor.

Rajini is an experience. Rajini is a phenomenon. He gives us a collective-identity. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, Rajinikanth will guide you home.

On Failure

1. The sheet that covers her face, clenched tightly between her teeth, growing moist around her mouth, is insufficient defence. She twists on the hard mattress, conscious of another morning that attacks her through the gap in the curtain. Another bloody day. Determined to return to sleep, she perceives her own condition from the bedroom door - such drama, such comedy, it is almost unreal. There is nothing left to live for. What's the point anyway?

2. He goes back to the cigarette every time the task is too big. He has been falling off the pace for a few months now. It is incredible how a few bad months can completely derail your life. Money, love and ambition have all dried up; as he stubs the flaming stub under his dusty chappal, he realizes health will soon follow suit. What's the point anyway?

3. You got fired. So what? She left you for another man. So what? Your dreams are crashing and burning in a blinding flame that lights up your wonderful past. So what? You deserted your parents, and now they're dead. How did it all come to this? There is either pain, or nothing. You want neither. Is happiness so difficult to find? Okay, cut that crap about not having to seek happiness. Of course you must seek happiness. Or perish in the attempt. What's the point of life anyway?

4. You cannot lose everything that matters unless you let something matter. You look at your friends, leading their sedentary lives, "hedging risks", existing but never living. Nothing matters. They eat, they breathe, they sleep, they find someone who will share their bed for sixty years, they get themselves a career, they eat, they breathe, they sleep, they defecate... They'll probably never feel like killing themselves. But they'll never feel like Alexander. Go big or go home. Only, "go home" is a lie. You don't go home. You nearly die.

5. You know those flirts? Who don't truly follow their hearts. Because they're cowards. And dabble with millions of ideas, people and events. They'll never make up their minds. Making up their minds would kill them. You know why? Because they'd be All In. Most humans cannot go All In. They're scared. They'd much rather live their lukewarm romances.

6. When you invest blood, sweat and tears in a person, in a book, in a company, in an idea... you do it with expectations. Sri Krishna talks about outcome-independence. Don't bother about the fruits of your actions; your actions are both the means and the end. But who is so great that he/she truly believes this? And if someone truly believes in outcome-independence, doesn't that spell the end of passion? There is no way to reconcile passion and wisdom. No, you cannot have the whole fucking lot.

7. You know it is reasonable to settle into a rhythm, right? Why work outside your comfort-zone? What's that again - "Life starts outside the comfort zone"? Yeah, no it doesn't. Life starts when you emerge from the womb, covered in a film of sticky fluid and wail into the world. Life ends when you can wail no more. Everything in between is life. So you lost. Everybody loses. There is no point analysing this.

8. Where do we go now? Where do we go? Isn't it too late to salvage something? It probably is. Then again, life is weird. There are no beginnings, no middles, no ends. It's just a mess. A hopeless tangle of events, thoughts, emotions, places, people... None of it is supposed to make sense. Not from up close, anyway. Maybe from a distance. From far, far away, everything makes sense. You're living a goddamned epic!

9. And she does it over and over again. She calls me to tell me how she suffers only because of her goodness. Yes doll, you suffer only because of you're good. And successful people are successful only because they have rotten hearts. Get over yourself. If you're good, you wouldn't use it as defence! Goodness needs no incentive. Be good because you want to be good; nobody is asking you to be anything. People are shit? Well, of course they are! If everybody was good, we wouldn't give a damn about you. You angel.

10. "God is a dick!" Well, you believe in God; you haven't been broken enough. Be thankful. And shut up. You know the sequence: believer becomes agnostic, agnostic turns atheist, atheist converts into a bitter cynic, and the bitter cynic suffers real physical pain. Then everybody dies, of course. You know what? You are so conscious about your failure only because you think you can experience the state of not-failing. That's called hope. And hope is a good thing.

Unedited Notes #1: Conscience (29.1.2016)

Promise me you won't laugh. Don't pity me either. I don't want your ridicule or sympathy. This is a public diary entry, mostly because I don't maintain a diary. I also write this here, I admit, because I want this to turn up when people search for Unhappiness, Depression and First World Gloom.

We all view life as a long, uncertain story, that progresses through time. Something like a YouTube video - only here, you can't skip forward. The only difference between life and the YouTube video is this: in life, you are inside the video.

So you are being conditioned by the story until now, which in turn influences how you perceive future occurrences. From an engineering perspective, perception is a function of time. And this perception usually shapes your future actions, which in turn changes your story and thereby your future perception of reality.

It's fucked up. You exercise even lesser control over your existence than you think you do. And what you can control most, and what you feel most helpless about, is this: how you perceive things. Because you're going to see many crappy things.

In fact, humans always reach a stage (in the twenties, or if you're having a really crappy life, in teenage) when they think anything that isn't horrible is actually nice. If a door is held open, or if someone tells you that you dropped your boarding-pass, or if a random stranger smiles at you, or if a car stops to let you cross the road. Human beings have the amazing ability to lower their expectations until normalcy seems like heaven. That, of course, is the trick to stay happy.

But if you're like me, you won't do that. I shan't lower my bar just because I've seen my share of idiots. I live in the hope that people will, one day, stop being so hopelessly irresponsible. I put my faith in that Justice Clock, high up in the sky, beyond my range of vision.

In a strange way, I'm fighting what the world is telling me: "Hey, I'm really shitty! No, seriously dude. There's no redemption here. I will stay this bad, for ever and ever and ever... Ha ha ha." And like an idiot, I say to the world, "No, no. You're good. You just don't know it yet."

I do this because I think the individual can prevail only by holding on to certain beliefs. I actually think that there is some intrinsic virtue in existence. Let me ask you something: do you think conscience is a universal construct?

There are certain things I would never do, because I think they're shitty. For example, I'd never want to murder someone, or physically hurt them, or extort them, or betray their faith. When such things happen to me, I rationalize them. Rationalization is the easiest route to forgiveness.

But should there be forgiveness if there is no remorse? I mean - if someone tries to kill you, fails and then walks away, but never expresses remorse, is it reasonable to forgive that person? And does this forgiveness mean you've lowered the bar? Have you stopped expecting people to be better than they are?