His last success was Sivaji the Boss (Kuselan his latest release which has not done well in the box office as per press reports) was all about one man's successful crusade against the parallel economy and the ills associated with it.
While the plot was indeed weak in terms of dealing with a subject as convoluted, complicated and technical as the parallel economy, one did appreciate his attempts to present the subject in simple terms to the common man.
What is interesting to note here is that in that particular film, Rajni was hauled to the courts for having bribed albeit with good intentions and is forced to confess in the courts -- "I was cornered." Nothing else could better explain the omnipotence of the extant system -- it has the potency to fell even the superstar and have them cornered!
Is it this dysfunctional system that makes us corrupt or do we by practicing corruption make the system dysfunctional? Indeed a tough question. For instance, it is impossible to believe that we in India can get the gas, water or electricity connection, plan sanctions for building houses or for that matter wherever the government is involved, without paying 'speed money'.
The alternative is to suffer in silence. And either way most Indians, including myself, are guilty of either of these two sins. If educated Indians in urban India are so despondent, the less said the better about our rural brethren the better. Naturally, anyone -- superstar or otherwise -- who promises to deliver the knockout punch on the extant situation naturally arouses the passion of millions.
Image: A poster from Rajni's Kuselan
Also read: From a milkman to superstar!
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