Rajini@45: It's time for Thalaivar fans to go down memory lane

It was on August 15, 1975, that Shivaji Rao Gaekwad aka Rajinikanth made his debut in Tamil cinema with ' Apoorva Ragangal'. There was yet another epoch-making event on the same day and that was the release of the cult film 'Sholay', which was initially dismissed as hybrid western. Both these films turned out to be trendsetters in their own way, forever.

The Tamil film's hero was Kamal Haasan, his long time onscreen rival and offscreen pal. Yet, providentially, the manner in which Rajini's character gets an introduction in the movie, made people sit up and take notice of this man who was fidgety, hyper-energetic and possessed an inexplicable presence on the silver screen.

45 years later, with 167 films under his belt, an international career of sorts with exposure to acting in a solitary English film ( Bloodstone), long-standing associations with the icons of all other fellow film industries, Rajinikanth is the sole surviving superstar from working in the black & white era to digital movie making.

His brand equity and popularity have been exclusively on his performances and there were no extensions of his onscreen aura to allied fields like advertising where many heroes have endorsed 'performance-booster' pills to hair oils and continue to do so.

In a recent media interaction, Rajinikanth openly admitted that he is in the game only because of the money today but concurs that his interest in the cinema industry has not diminished one bit. With pay of Rs 100 crore per film as reported recently, he is still head and shoulders above the hundreds of heroes who have made a bow and performed under the arc lights in Indian cinema.