The Thalaiva knows no boundaries

The recent announcement of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award this year for South superstar Rajinikanth is celebrated by all Indians in India and abroad Actually it is quite strange since the Indian film industries as well as their stars are accepted only among their own regional followers and in their own local languagesAll South Indian language films have their superstars Although South actors when popular do have the advantage of working in more than one South language film the language superstar is usually a homegrown actor While the Tamil audience may accept a Telugu stars film and vice versa when it comes to a star from the Hindi film industry it is a nogo in the SouthThe Hindi film industry and filmstars have this advantage of acceptance by a wider audience due the Hindi language being understood and followed in most parts of India though in the South Hindi is understood only by a few The biggest of Hindi film stars have not been able to make a dent in the South Neither Rajesh Khanna nor Amitabh Bachchan with whom the people may have been familiar with but that was thatYes the one Hindi film actor who was very popular and whose films did excellent business in the South is Mithun ChakrabortyMithuns musical action films and his contemporary dances in those days were loved There was no system of dubbing Hindi films for regionspecific languages But then Mithuns films were about action and dance and those suffered no language barrierThe Hindi screen actors who are most popular in the South are the villains They as good as dominate the South films while the local villains there have now been turned into playing comic roles Vidyut Jammwal Pradeep Rawat Mukesh Rishi Rahul Dev Mukul Dev Sayaji Shinde Ashish Vidyarthi Ashutosh Rana Mukesh Tiwari Yashpal Sharma and Sonu Sood are prominent examplesBesides that people remember certain characters from the film Sholay maybe also some other films just for the characters they played which I witnessed firsthand It was during the shooting of producer Yash Johars film Duniya in Cochin The film starred Dilip Kumar Ashok Kumar and Rishi Kapoor A horde of media was invited to attend the shoot One of the artistes in the film was Mac Mohan and on seeing him the usual crowd that gathers to watch a film shoot started shouting in chorus calling him Oye Samba Sholay had run for five years in a Mumbai cinema and had also enjoyed a fair share of success in the SouthRajinikanth the South star who lasted the longest on the Hindi screen could do so because he played to the gallery Also he was always cast in parallel roles Producers preferred to cast him with Amitabh Bachchan because even for a Bachchan film the South market was not lucrative The idea was to combine him with the South superstar Rajinikanth and that combination spelt money Rajinikanth is one star who enjoys a fan following across the world and especially so in the Southeast Asia In fact his film Muthu was a blockbuster in Japan having run for over 20 weeksSome of the South stars could have stayed longer in the Hindi industry but opportunists flooded the market with the Hindi dubbed versions of these actors South Indian hits thus killing their prospectsIt is probably the characters that an actor plays that the South audience takes a liking to Stardom or glamour matter little or not at all That is probably why the South stars dont carry their starry image in real life as one may have seen with Rajnikanth who never hides his bald pate and appears in the traditional dress in publicSimilarly one watched the erstwhile Telugu superstar Krishna shooting in the afternoon dressed up for his role and justifying his superstar status The same evening at a media gettogether he appeared sans his hairpiece and in traditional munduWhile Mumbai stars rarely get a chance to feature in South films except in a guest role or as second fiddle the South actors have had more opportunities to break into the Hindi film industry After all Hindi films guarantee allIndia acceptance Quite a few actors from South language films entered Hindi films and with a bang with jubilee hits for their debut filmsKamal Haasan made his Hindi debut with the film Ek Duuje Ke Liye an allIndia hit Thereafter he did get a few more opportunities to find a foothold but could not Similarly the Telugu star Chiranjeevi entered Hindi films with a home production Pratibandh followed by Aaj Ka Goonda Raaj both hits and that was that in Hindi films for himSimilar was the case with Nagarjuna who made a dashing entry in Hindi cinema with Shiva a campusversusunderworld movie But what followed was mostly a few side roles Venkatesh son of the doyen of South industry D Rama Naidu was launched in the home production Anari which was a hit Not much was heard of him thereafter Then there was Harish who got a bigtime break with D Rama Naidus Prem Qaidi with Karisma Kapoor but was reduced to playing side roles in the few Hindi films he was offeredAs for Rana Daggubati his grandfather D Rama Naidu had big plans to launch him on the Hindi screen if his debut Telugu film had succeeded But it was not to be and Rana was also left to do side roles in Hindi movies There were a few others who tried without success Among them were the Kannada stars Ambareesh and Vishnuvardhan besides the Malayalam stars Mammootty Mohanlal and PrithvirajThen there was the legend Rajinikanth recipient of the Dada Saheb Phalke Award this year the award took its time coming though who has crossed all regional and language barriers that the film industries in India face and emerged as the National Icon While the films in the South still catered to the family audience Rajinikanth brought in loud style and mannerisms and captured the youth and mass audience instantly He devised his own unique style to toss a cigarette between his lips or to juggle his goggles as he placed them on his nose or toss and tilt his head This was accepted because he played mainly negative charactersBut when he was cast as the main lead his fans wanted to see the same style he had become popular for The South movie lovers have made icons out of many filmstars but Rajinikanth stands a notch above Many a star has been awarded the Phalke award but the reception and reactions to the award to Rajinikanth has been overwhelming panIndia His popularity is limited by no barrierWhile it is not easy to break the sound barrier it is even tougher to break the language and region barriers when it comes to Indian films Rajinikanth has achieved the rare feat He is aptly titled Thalaiva the leaderThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever