Thalaivar is not a word. It is a feeling. When Rajinikanth walks onto the screen, people don’t just cheer for a star. They see struggle, style, hope and celebration. They see someone who looks like them, speaks like them, fails, rises, falls again and still stands tall. Many actors get whistles. Only Rajini gets ownership.

Fifty years after Apoorva Raagangal (1975), Rajinikanth at 75 is still headlining festival releases, still turning theatres into stadiums and still making teenagers dress like him for Coolie shows. The question is no longer “How big is Rajinikanth?” It is: How has he managed to be this big for this long and still feel like one of us?

Perhaps the best way to answer that is to trace his journey through what he became on screen – the villain, the style symbol, the p

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