Super style: Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan starring in ‘Enthiran’. The superstar may be balding but in the eyes of many, his swagger has never waned.

Ravi Shankar, the great maestro is no more. And if the doomsayers have it right, the world as we know it may be no more in a week. But for now, at least, the south Indians are celebrating. The great superstar Rajinikanth just turned 62 on 12-12-12.

THERE’S just a week to go before Armageddon. Next Friday, it will be 21-12-12, the day the Mayan calendar comes to an end, the day the “preppers” say the world will come to an end.

Even the great Nostradamus, it is said, had predicted great catastrophe on that day.

But we will never know, will we? We will just have to wait – and hope that Christmas Day will come to be.

Meanwhile, as I write this, it’s the other triple digit day of the year. It’s 12-12-12. And for music fans, it was a sad day.

Indian sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar has died at 92. He was a legend, a man whose music brought the world to its knees.

He was the great Indian superstar, the man who George Harrison called the “godfather of world music”.

His sitar inspired the Beatles’ Norwegian Woods and he scored the music for Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi.

He was worshipped by many a hippie and was loved by great musicians like violinist Yehudi Menihin and the great music conductor Zubin Mehta.

His death was a day mourned by much of the world and all of India.

All of India? Not really. Tamil Nadu was celebrating. No, not Ravi Shan­kar’s death but the birthday of the other Indian superstar, Rajinikanth.

The south Indian state celebrated its great star’s 62nd birthday by releasing his blockbuster movie Shivaji the Boss in 3D.

You may have heard of the movie. It was used to woo the voters in the last elections – the Malaysian general election – not the one in India. And the movie was a huge hit in Norway, the Netherlands and across Europe. Not to mention Rajini-mad Japan, where every movie of his is a big hit.

Books were released on Rajini­kanth and there were celebrations everywhere.

TV networks paid tribute by having his movies – and interviews with others about him – screened the entire day!

Thousands of fans thronged his house to greet him and took to the temples to hold prayers for his good health.

Even here in Malaysia, several TV networks on Astro had nothing but his movies and programmes about him. He is that big!

The hero-worship is something I’ll never understand.

You see, I have never been a great fan of his. His acting, I have always thought, was over-the-top. He does stuff that would make Bruce Lee keel over. He beats up an army with a smile on his face. He drives a horse cart with a pretty miss beside him and flies from one state to another.

He throws a knife and it stays there, spinning for minutes on end without falling to the ground.

It’s unbelievable. Literally. But they love it.

And he isn’t all that good-looking – he’s balding, he’s certainly no muscular hunk and he speaks Tamil in a funny way.

But put on a blow-dried wig, add a dash of make-up and women in south India swoon over him – and his “style”.

And that part about talking funny? Well, they love him precisely because of that.

However, I learnt that there’s another side to the man.

He’s the second highest-paid Asian actor after Jackie Chan but his fellow movie personnel – the crewmen, the directors, the producers – speak of a humble man who turns down suites in shooting locations, has simple food brought to his room and then washes the dishes and the “tiffin carrier” before returning them.

Said one actress: “He’s a superstar because he doesn’t believe he is one. It’s those around him who know he’s a superstar.”

It seems he’s also man who has not forgotten his roots – he was discovered when he was a bus conductor – and spends much of his time in meditation and thanksgiving prayer.

His birthday message to his fans? Love your parents first, others come later.

“Don’t celebrate my birthday with me, go celebrate with your parents,” he told his fans.

And at 62, he’s still going strong. His next project – Kochadaiyaan – will be a period piece that alludes to a great king of the ancient Indian Pandya empire who subdued those of the Chola and Chera kingdoms.

It should hit the screens next year – if the world is still around then.

The writer was at another birthday on 12-12-12. A friend’s wife turn­­­­­ed 50. They had the birthday do at a Christian home for children in Petaling Jaya. The friend and his wife are Hindu. It was a beautiful birthday do.

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