BOT (build-operate-transfer) fantasy

After a week it is safer to write on Sivaji, the boss, the force, the lover, the reformer…. Movies are still full and fans are still dancing, but media has left the blockbuster to its fate. So no one can blame a review at this point of time of promoting the most hyped movie in Indian history. And a word of caution to the Rajnikanth fans: Don’t take offence. I am just another unaffiliated fan who couldn’t make it to the first show.

When a Tamil/Telugu movie, which was released in 16 theatres in Chennai, 40 in Hyderabad, 13 in Bangalore and four in Thiruvananthapuram, gave its Bollywood counterparts a run for their money and sparked off riots in distant countries, there is surely much more than hype and hysteria. A colossal budget, a reputed studio, a hitmaker director and more importantly, the most loved (and costliest) actor on Indian screen.

Sivaji, like any other superstar film, is meant for the first day. Watching it a week later, I the fan was disappointed. There was no earth-shattering introduction sequence, there was no trademark punch dialogue and there was no superstar (at least in the first half). The only one who could do justice to the larger-than-life image of Rajni was music director AR Rahman. Director Shankar and Rajni himself were shadows of their previous works.

If Shankar tried to refine the superstar by cutting out all the “punch dialogues” (Vivek who plays Sivaji’s uncle-sidekick bars him from oratory because every Tom, Dick and Harry in Tamil Nadu is belting out punch dialogues these days), he has not understood the phenomenon called Rajnikanth. More than goggles and gestures, cigarettes and slow motion, it is the dialogue delivery that made a Rajnikanth out of Sivaji Rao Gaekwad.

An NRI with a green card (antha ooru ration card) whose signature word is “cool” is the last thing that can hold the charisma of Rajnikanth. In a poorly scripted first half, Rajnikanth spends time bribing politicians/bureaucrats for setting up a university/hospital and wooing the fair Tamilselvi played by Shriya. He even takes a flight of fancy to a fair fairyland, where state-of-the-art graphics makes him a whiteman! (No comments.)

But thanks to the Great Indian Bureaucracy, Sivaji is back to Re 1. Now starts the real Rajnipadam with the toss of a coin gifted by the villain. “Poo vizhnuntha poopathai, thalai vizhuntha singapathai…” Sivaji chooses singapathai (the lion’s path). But in the end, end justifies the means. Sivaji the reformer swindles crores of black money from industrialists/politicians/bureaucrats and launders it into development projects.

The ruthless elimination of enemies (always public enemies) and mobilization of the public follow. Now, Rajni is again the invincible superstar who lords over the monstrous patterns of director Shankar and the magnificent sets of art director Thota Tharani. The charming style culminates in his avatar as MGR (MG Ravichandran, not Ramachandran). The energy was reserved till the end, when Rajni, and his fans, go berserk.

Why else do we go mad for a former bus conductor who lights cigarettes inside the mouth and stops bullets in the air? Rajni is a celebration of secular popular culture. Even Rajni, who deliberately makes public appearances in his real age and attitude, wants to run home the point that the Rajni is a product of popular fantasy. Rajesh, the auto driver who took me to the theatre, said: “Watch it though it’s disappointing. It’s like paying toll after a mega bridge is made. It has been made. Now we have to pay.” AVM studio builds it, operates it and then the road to fantasy is all ours.