RAJINIKANTH SUPERSTAR

The last twelve months have been a particularly intense one for me and Naman—my husband . One filled with coincidences & milestones. A chance meeting between Naman and the amazing Jayapriya Vasudevan (Jacaranda literary agency) in Singapore, led to him writing a book on the life of Superstar Rajinikanth. Suddenly our life was taken over by Thalaivar (Headman in Tamil) and I became the unofficial chronicler of a behind-the-scenes making-of the-novel-on-the-life-of-the-Superstar record. Naman was in Chennai researching the book, and during one of his rare coming-back-to-earth moments, he mentioned his conversation with this incredible young man absolutely devoted to Superstar. Karthik is the president of RBSI – Rajini Biggest Superstar of India fanpage on FB, which currently has 70,000 fans. Incredible! How does it feel to be an individual who has devoted his every waking moment to his living god. I had to find out. So hear it straight from Chennai based Kamalakannan (Karthik) Sekar, the boy who would prefer to be simply known as “Karthik – A true fan of Superstar Rajini.”

Karthik's favourite picture of Superstar

 a. What is the one thing you want to achieve/ have already achieved in this life? The one thing which I achieved is I got the blessings of Superstar. The thing which I yet want to achieve is to make my parents and the people in my country proud which will finally create a smile on my Thalaivar’s face, making him feel proud of his fans.

b. Why do you feel such strong devotion for Thalaivar? Devotion for Thalaivar Rajini came because of the love and respect which I have on him. He is a humble man who creates new records in the box office and still says “He is nothing”, he never forgets his past nor his fans. He is a positive magnet (rajini "KANTH") and thus he attracts all positive people towards him. He cares about the lives of his fans, advising them to take care of their family first and being responsible citizens. The love which he has for us and what we have for him is something that cannot be explained in words. The audio which he released for fans from the hospital, the words he used in the letter which he wrote for fans proved that. True devotion comes only for God and the man in the God’s status – Thalaivar Rajini.

  

c. You mentioned that on Thalaivar's birthday you the RBSI team prefer to do charity work, it is a really genuine sentiment. How did this idea come about? The idea of doing charity work came from Thalaivar’s favorite line “Be Good, Do Good”, The greatest thing is to do good to others. Instead of spending money on Milk Abishekam, crackers, we decided to do something useful for the needy. We served food for the physically challenged people and for the people in the old age homes… its still going on. We get a sense of happiness and satisfaction when we see a smile in the face of those innocent people.

     

d. What is a typical day for you and the RBSI team? The main reason for RBSI’s reach is because of our unique posts. Unlike other pages which update once in a month, we update daily irrespective of any other news on that day. We brand our posts with a LOGO, and with attractive captions such as “RBSI – Morning message (where we share a thought of the day from Thalaivar), RBSI – Pick (pic) of the day (sharing an unique photo of Thalaivar), RBSI – Things to think (fan questions), RBSI – Fan of the week (recognizing the most active fan on the page), RBSI – Classic Collections (sharing a rare classic photo.)

As thousands of fans trust us and follow us, it’s our responsibility to share only authentic news and so we are very careful about that. We ask suggestions from fans to develop the page, RBSI encourages the talents of the fans by giving them chance to design on special days and sharing their works to thousands of fans and fans feel happy when their work is recognized at a mass level, RBSI promotes the creative aspect by sharing good documentaries and short films. We update minute details about Superstar which are unknown to many fans and they tend to show more interest on the page. Till now no money has been spent in Facebook Ads to promote the page. As Thalaivar says, “RBSI is made out of love” – “Ithu anbu samrajyam”. We celebrate Superstar’s birthdays and his movie releases by having a common profile picture. It is great when thousands of fans have the same profile picture. 

And last but not the least it’s because of the fans, The love which they have on Thalaivar Rajini which makes our page going.

Karthik & Superstar

e. Can you tell me a little more about the other RBSI team members? The RBSI admin team comprises of 10 hardcore fans of Thalaivar. We met only because of Thalaivar. We weren’t blood relationships, we weren’t friends, we weren’t acquaintances. But we became brothers because of what we have in common—our love for  Superstar Rajini. It’s also the great support by the RBSI admin team which keeps it fresh and active.

A few months after RBSI started, I got a call from Prabhu—A true fan of Thalaivar who works in a Multinational company and also takes up charity works in the name of Thalaivar on special days—Prabhu is a very good human by nature and is like my brother who extended support during the critical stages of RBSI. He appreciated me for RBSI’s good work, RBSI had only 2000 members at that point of time, Prabhu as a token of love gave me the first day first show ticket for“ENTHIRAN –  The Robot.” It was a great honor as the first day first show ticket for a Superstar movie is very precious. He put RBSI in touch with Superstar’s official fan club in Chennai at Saidapet introducing me to the fan club head Ravi. RBSI was again recognized and appreciated there.

The other admins are Ilayaraja (creative person and one of the reasons for RBSI’s uniqueness), Nandhu (passionate Thalaivar fan who takes up all works in RBSI), Selin (Created the RBSI wordpress website – www.rbsi.in now not in use) , Selva (edits creative videos), Saravana Kumar (takes up designing in RBSI), Saravana J (content creator, very fast in updating), Chidambaranadan (classy punches), Dhanen (philosophical posts from Thalaivar movies). 

Other than the admin team, RBSI also has many supporters like Arunachalam, Saravanan N, Anush V, Arun Prashanth, Manikandan, Vinod Kankalu, Vijay Kumar, Sampath, Rafeeq, Karthikeyan, Ganesan and Nivedita.

Rajinikanth - the real Facebook Superstar

f. You have nearly 70,000 fans of RBSI page. What are your future plans for this community? Our plan is to cross 100,000 mark before the release of Superstar’s next movie – KOCHADAIYAAN. Our first plan is to make RBSI get Thalaivar’s blessings and will have to discuss to him about transforming his greatest empire in the internet to a responsible medium/organization to serve the society. Whatever he tells us, we will follow … But we are very firm in getting his blessings as RBSI is not just a page, it represents  thousands of true good hearted fans.

True devotion is rare—you will agree—and Karthik & the RBSI team are the real thing! I am especially touched by the team taking on charity work to celebrate Thalaivar’s birthday. You can find RBSI here https://www.facebook.com/Rajini.B.S.India
Rajinikanth--The Definitive Biography by Naman Ramachandran will be released by Penguin on 12/12/12, the day the world is supposed to end but will not because Rajinikanth will save the day.