Forget political rallies where ageing politicos pay crowds to come listen to their fiery rhetoric

Got your Endhiran Tickets?

The scenes at Tamil Nadu theaters last Saturday made the crowds at St Mary's Feast look like a piffling couple of folk. Endhiran had just released its trailer.

And everybody whose name was Muthuswamy and who was worthy of wearing his father's favourite pink lungi, was trampling his lifelong buddy into the dust - all for a ticket to be one of the first people to catch a glimpse of Rajini in his new sci-fi avatar on big screen.

Coins were thrown. Diyas were lit. And the Muthuswamys of the world quickly went back into line to buy tickets for the second show.u00a0The actual religious event of the movie's release is slated to be an epic that makes all the hype and hoopla over poor strutting Sallu's Dabangg look like an impoverished cousin.

Rajini smses have started doing the rounds suddenly. Sample a couple: "Rajinikant once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink." Or the crisp: "Rajinikant can slam a revolving door." And the now famous line, rumoured to be pulled out of Endhiran: "Rajini can hit you so hard, you'll fly where even Google can't find you."u00a0

From what you get to catch on the small screen, the movie seems to have everything a normal Rajini movie possesses: a full wig of hair, lots of nonsensical lines that will quickly go on to becoming folklore, and a beautifulu00a0 actress-cum-prop for Saar to romance when he's not ridding the world of baddies.u00a0

This time around, there also seems to be an animated robot (no, not Aishwarya, she's the aforementioned actress-as-prop) who looks like the animators were inspired from thirty years ago andu00a0 the Star Wars series perhaps intentionally so after all Muthuswamy isn't going to recognise a robot if he looks more human than robotic.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0

Ash, they say is supposed to have done all the action scenes herself. Thank God, for special effects: you can hardly expect us to get excited by the batting of an eye, the only action she seems capable of!
The movie is the most expensive one ever made in India.u00a0 And other mortal producers have cancelled all releases for two weeks before, and a month after, Endhiran. There's even a song, composed by A R Rahman that goes "Electron, Neutron ufffdOh baby! Oh baby!"

Oh baby! You just can't explain how Rajini puts together such nonsense. And turns it into history.

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