Rajnikanth and the Japanese

In Tamil Nadu, we worship our film stars (in many cases literally: by building temples, installing their images as deities and actually conducting pooja). And of course among all the stars we adulate, Rajnikanth has a special place of his own. This macho hero, who can fell twenty rogues with one punch and cause a building to collapse by simply blowing hard on it, is revered in every nook and canny of Tamil Nadu, loved elsewhere in South India and pretty well-known even in the rest of the country. But I always took it for granted that the super star’s popularity, like the big rivers of the country, stopped at the shores of the nation.

“Do you think,” a friend asked me a few years ago, “Rajnikanth has fans outside India?”

I shook my head.

“Well, he does – in Japan!” he said.

“I don’t believe that,” I said. “That’s like telling me the Japanese have suddenly started eating uttapam instead of sushi.”

“They may not have taken to uttapam”, he said, “but they’ve definitely taken to Rajnikanth in a big way. In fact,” he continued when he saw me still looking sceptical, “Rajni’s 1998 film ‘Muthu’ was the first Tamil film to be dubbed into Japanese: it was released under the endearing name of ‘Mutu: Odoru Maharaja’ and it grossed a record $1.6 million in Japan.”

Intrigued, I did my own research and found that my friend was right. According to Newsweek, for example, Rajnikanth had “supplanted Leonardo DiCaprio as Japan's trendiest heartthrob”.

I resolved to get some insight into this peculiar Japanese fascination whenever I got the chance to visit Japan. And when I finally went there, I was no longer surprised by Rajnikanth’s popularity in Japan: I was astonished... because Rajnikanth and the Japanese are very different.

Take dressing first. The Japanese dress in a very conservative manner. Men wear neat black suits (or for occasional variety, dark navy blue ones) with white shirts and staid ties. It is rumoured that some men take off the tie on weekends but this has not been confirmed. Women wear formal business suits too and, while they do look different from (and better than) the men, they all resemble each other. Conformity is big in Japan: not standing out is religion. Hordes of identically dressed people pass (politely) by you, and the odd foreigner in coloured clothes strikes a discordant note.

Rajnikanth, in sharp contrast, does not dress conservatively. His sense of attire can be described as vivid and vivacious. He approaches dressing with panache and he stands out in any crowd. While I’ve seen him don all the colours of the rainbow, it may be safe to say that his favourite colours are red and yellow because he tends to wear them often, including the few occasions when he wears a suit. I’ve never seen him any Japanese dress remotely like him and I’ve never him dress like a Japanese. He shuns the dark pinstripe suit. As for a white shirt, he may wear one to attend the cremation of a loved one (and later wreak havoc on the scoundrels who caused it) but not otherwise.

The Japanese talk more conservatively than they dress: they are polite and respectful (“Hello, Paddy-san. Good morning, Paddy-san. How are you, Paddy-san?”); talk very softly, sounding like snowflakes crashing on the pavement; and (except for the “Paddy-sans”) don’t repeat themselves. Now Rajnikanth is polite and respectful to his mother but to everyone else, especially the average villain, he is curt. He is also – let’s face it – loud. His voice carries clearly over 100 metres even when he is speaking politely to his mother but when he barks out “Rascala” at the villain, you can hear him even if you’re only in the vicinity of the theatre showing his film. And finally, he tends to repeat himself, especially when uttering his trademark slogans like “Yen vazhi tanni vazhi”, meaning: My method is a separate (and by implication, a significantly superior) method. In one film, he took a fancy to saying: “Naan oru darava sonna, noor darava solara madri”, which means: If I say something once, it’s like saying it a 100 times. And he repeated it a 100 times. So mathematically, we heard it 10,000 times… it certainly sounded like it.

Like Rajnikanth, the Japanese like to smoke, but they do it like they do everything else: quietly and unobtrusively. For Rajnikanth, smoking is a ritual steeped in style: he plucks the cigarette from his pocket (or the ear of the villain standing opposite); spins it into the air (using the time while it is airborne to give two resounding punches to the villain whose ear contributed the cigarette); catches it with his mouth – always filter-side first; lights it by striking the match on an exotic surface like the bald plate of a bystander; and smokes with flamboyance, sending smoke in all shapes and sizes into the air. People go to the cinema just to watch Rajni smoke. (Lately he seems to have given up smoking on screen but the way he handles chewing gum is a spectacle to behold.)

The Japanese move slowly and unobtrusively, hardly disturbing the air around them. If you come in their path, they courteously move out of the way. Rajnikanth moves fast and with flair, shaking the air, the ground, the trees and nearby buildings in his wake. Everyone in his path, especially rogues, become history: he does not know the meaning of “moving out of the way”.

Yes, everything Rajnikanth does on screen is a complete antithesis to the way Japanese live. Yet they love him. Perhaps he represents their inner cravings for a more exciting life. Or perhaps they watch him to appreciate their own calm lives better.