On his 75th birthday, December 12, 2025, a resurfaced interview has reminded fans why Rajinikanth is revered not just as a superstar but as a deeply spiritual and grounded human being. Speaking years ago to director Pankaj Parashar (Chaalbaaz), the actor revealed his personal ritual to counter the intoxicating effects of mass worship: “People treat me like a god. That can go to anyone’s head. So every year I disappear to the mountains, stay in a temple ashram for 10-12 days, clean the floors myself, sleep on the bare ground, and eat whatever is served—just to remind myself I am an ordinary man.”
Parashar, who directed Rajinikanth opposite Sridevi in the 1989 Hindi hit Chaalbaaz, recalled being stunned by the megastar’s simplicity on set. “He used to drive himself to shooting in an old 1960s Fiat—no driver, no manager, no vanity van. One day the car’s AC wasn’t working in peak Mumbai summer. He offered to drop me off at my hotel. I rolled down the window for air. He warned, ‘Don’t—there will be gallata.’ I laughed. At the next signal, two people spotted him and screamed, ‘Thalaiva!’ Within minutes there was a traffic jam, mothers placing babies on the bonnet for blessings, and police rushing in. That day I truly understood the madness.”
Even in Bollywood, where he was already a southern import, Rajinikanth consciously played against type in Chaalbaaz. “He realised it was Sridevi’s film,” Parashar said. “Most superstars would have demanded heroic scenes. Instead, he agreed to play a comical, scared-of-ghosts underdog—something unimaginable for his image back home. He improvised brilliantly and made the character lovable.”
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The actor’s habit of retreating to the Himalayas or remote Tamil Nadu temples has been a quietly guarded annual practice for decades. Associates say he switches off his phone, dons simple clothes, and performs menial chores alongside sadhus—sweeping courtyards at dawn, washing utensils, sometimes even cleaning toilets—all to “detox from ego”, as he once described it.
As tributes pour in on his diamond birthday—from giant cut-outs in Madurai to special screenings of Baashha and special anniversary re-releases—this old anecdote has gone viral again, with fans hailing the man who, even at the peak of god-like adulation, chooses to sleep on the floor to stay human.
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