Rajinikanth turns 51, in screen years, on the Dharman set

August 15 is an anniversary twice over on a Rajinikanth set. On that date in 1975, K Balachander’s Apoorva Raagangal reached theatres and put a brooding newcomer named Rajinikanth on screen for the first time. Fifty-one years later to the day, the unit of Dharman downed tools on Friday for a cake-cutting with the man himself, director Ashwath Marimuthu and the full cast and crew gathered around him.

The production dressed the moment properly. A backdrop reading Superstar Rajini, 51 Years of Swag went up on the set wall, Rajinikanth answered the applause with folded hands, and the cake that arrived was long enough to need a table built for it. The candid frames are the good ones: the 75-year-old waving across the cake at a floor crew whistling and cheering like a first-day-first-show crowd.

Dharman has been generous with set stories already. Ashwath Marimuthu has admitted he whistled at his own monitor on day one of filming, and Rajinikanth recently gave co-star Raashii Khanna a book with a quiz attached. For the anniversary photographs, Simran and Raashii Khanna flanked him along with the director.

The neatest symmetry in the room went unstated. Dharman is produced by Kamal Haasan and R Mahendran under Raajkamal Films International and Turmeric Media, and Kamal Haasan was there at the very beginning too: he starred in Apoorva Raagangal, the film that introduced Rajinikanth. Fifty-one years after sharing that first frame of a career, he is the producer paying for the cake.