1. The immensely popular actor was a bus supervisor in Bangalore before he headed to the Madras Film Institute to pursue his passion. For many years, he was the highest-paid actor in India, and second-highest in Asia — behind only Jackie Chan.
2. Rajinikanth has been rehearsing one of his signature moves — tossing a cigarette in the air and catching it with his lips — since he was 18. The actor used to use the trick to impress older friends in school.
3. He is a pop culture icon in Japan, thanks to the success of his 1998 release Muthu, which was translated into Japanese as Muthu: The Dancing Maharaja. The film ran for 23 weeks and earned more than 208 million yen, thus initiating “Rajni fever” in Japan. His image is a popularly traded commodity on paraphernalia such as stickers, posters, t-shirts and keychains.
4. The 65-year-old actor has a very devoted following that regularly makes the news. In 2011, Rajinikanth fell prey to an illness that greatly worried his followers. When he recovered, fans were so relieved to have him back that over a1,000 of them shaved their heads as a sign of gratitude.
5. For the premiere of his latest film Kabali in India on July 22, some firms in Chennai and Bengaluru have officially granted leave to their employees. A few companies have also booked tickets for their employees.
6. The actor doesn’t just have fan clubs and fan sites dedicated to him. Rajinikanth’s moves and characteristic laws-of-physics-defying stunts have inspired a whole new genre of humour, with websites devoted solely to ‘Rajni jokes’.
7. A documentary titled For the Love of a Man was released in 2015, and is an ode to Rajni’s massive and passionate fan base across the globe — from those in rural Tamil Nadu to those in the glittering streets of Japan.
8. His film Enthiran (remade in Hindi as Robot with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) is the only Tamil-language film that made it into the IMDb’s “Top 50 Films from Around the World” category in 2010. The film, along with Muthu, has also been included as a case study in an IIM-A (Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad) post-graduate elective course.
9. When he joined Twitter in 2014, Rajinikanth broke the first-day follower record for all Indian celebrities, amassing 215,000 followers on his very first day. His debut is ranked sixth in the list of the biggest Twitter debuts of all time. (Robert Downey Jr is number one.)
10. Even though Rajinikanth is considered a south Indian megastar, the actor is originally from Maharashtra. He has worked in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and even Bengali films, but has never been in a role where his character speaks Marathi.
— Sayema Wasi is an intern at Gulf News.
