Chennai: Rajinikanth may have showed great composure when a patient at the Thoothkudi hospital posed the question - "Who are you?" The actor smiled and said, "I am Rajinikanth". If the Superstar had not been aware of the feelings running in coastal Tamil Nadu over the Sterlite Copper plant, his meeting with K. Santosh Raj might have been a cruel lesson in reality.
The youth had showered similar bitterness on official visitors from the government in Information Minister Kadambur Raju and the Dy CM OPS. But none of that had Twitterati atwitter as the one concerning the actor Rajini. The topic was trending on Twitter as the enormity of the challenge to charisma sank in.
The trolling may have been a new experience too, although Rajini is already more than knee deep into the quagmire of Tamil Nadu politics.
But, having commented about anti-socials taking over the stir against the copper smelter, Rajini had placed himself in the path of the agitators like Santosh who had taken this up as a cause a few years ago.
Injured on the march with police lathis raining blows on him, Santosh's bitterness personified the feelings of youth of the district too that had taken up cudgels against the polluting corporate.
Rajini did not exactly win friends and influence people with his perception of how the Sterlite agitation had lost course with professional mischief makers taking control.
What Rajini said was unlikely to be popular. In a scene made more confusing by the interplay of politics, religion and corporate disregard of public health - one clear instance of gas leak in 2013 was sufficient to sustain the description - no one knows where the truth lies and fake news begins.
The bitter truth is 13 people died from police firing and the Twitterati were naturally incensed enough to be wholly on the side of the agitators. The Superstar can only smile and move on much as he did when tendering regret over his altercation with the media at the Chennai airport on the way back from the coast.
It took only a few hours for hashtags like #Naan-ThanPaRajinikanth and #AntiTamilRajinikanth to take pole position in the 15 minutes of fame everyone in the world is owed, as the late Andy Warhol said.
If Rajini did not know this already, the star who has played the anti-Establishment hero in many of his films and come out triumphant would have realised politics is a different world.
