Are Rajinikanths guilty of treating their maid shabbily?

The Superstar of superstars and his wife may have been seen in poor light as employers when Rajini, Latha and a few other guests had gone to Satyam Cinema in Chennai to catch an evening show of Thalaiva’s new blockbuster  2.O  last week. The entire theatre had been booked for them on the occasion.  

Once in the theatre, Rajini and his family made themselves comfortable but a young girl, apparently the house help, was seen standing behind the family, watching the entire film in a standing position. What may have angered anyone seeing the stills in a video put out on the film 2.O  is that only a few seats were occupied by him and his family in the entire theatre.

Says a young star of Tamil cinema, “She could’ve sat anywhere in the theatre, a little away from the family, as almost all the seats were empty.  I agree, to make her stand was cruel. But, perhaps not to the people in the video. You must understand that domestic help in Tamil Nadu and probably in the rest of the country is constantly shown its place.  You can’t have your house help sitting with you.  The belief is, if you treat them as equals and they will get a swollen head. In many star homes of Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai, the domestic help is given the shabbiest treatment, made to sleep on a hard surface, given different food from what the employers eat. See, we are calling them employers. But they behave like the lord and master vis a vis their staff. Rajini Sir and his family do think they are doing anything shocking. If he had asked the house help to sit with them and enjoy 2.O  she ‘d have probably fainted of shock.”

A colleague of Rajinikanth in Mumbai admits there is widespread discrimination against the household staff in the film fraternity. “But why single out film folks for treating their staff shabbily? It happens in every section of Indian society. It is the wife in the family who decides the behaviour to be meted out to the staff. And oftentimes, the behaviour is guided by class distinction rather than human compassion.”