Rajinikanth gave Raashii Khanna a book, and a test

Two days after a conversation about spirituality on the Dharman set, he turned up with a copy of Swami Rama. Then he told her he would quiz her on it.

Actors talk about a lot of things between takes. On the Dharman set, Raashii Khanna and Rajinikanth ended up on spirituality, and he asked whether she had read Living with the Himalayan Masters. She had not.

“Two days later, he brought a copy and gifted it to me,” she said. That is the whole exchange, and it is a more revealing piece of behaviour than most of what gets said about him at events. He did not recommend the book. He went and found it.

She posted a video about the gift, with a line that has been doing the rounds since: “A thoughtful gift from Rajinikanth sir and a quiet lesson. Sometimes growth is not about becoming more. It’s about letting go of everything you’re pretending to be.”

Swami Rama’s memoir is an account of his years with teachers in the Himalayas, and the section Raashii keeps returning to is about the parts of ourselves we refuse to look at, the habits and conflicts we cover with a presentable front and then project onto other people. She read a passage from it aloud in the video.

“What I took away from this is why so many of us feel disconnected,” she said. “Not because we have lost ourselves overnight but because we have spent years becoming someone else. And maybe that’s why silence can feel so loud. Because without distractions, you are finally left with yourself.” Handing a book about dropping pretense to someone who performs for a living has a certain wit to it, whether or not it was intended.

The choice of book is not random on his side either. Rajinikanth’s trips to the Himalayas to meditate, usually slotted between films, are among the few parts of his private life he has never hidden, and he tends to make them in plain clothes with no entourage worth photographing. This is the reading list that goes with that.

Dharman is Raashii’s first film with him. It is directed by Ashwath Marimuthu, who followed Dragon with this, and who could not keep himself from whistling at the monitor on day one. Simran is also in the cast, in a role with considerably more weight than her brief turn in Petta. Raashii was last on screen in Ustaad Bhagat Singh opposite Pawan Kalyan.

She has been reading the book diligently for a fortnight, and she has a reason to. Rajinikanth told her he would be testing her on it.