There's one more reason: being part of a human chain when your film has justreleased is a hell of an opportunity to promote your film. Granted that whenSurya (and his brother actor Karthi) held hands with hundreds of techies atRajiv Gandhi Tidel Park and sported T-shirts that said "Guns areheartless" and "Stop the war", he did not speak about VaaranamAayiram that was released over the week-end. But isn't it ironical that heplays a major who fights terrorists in the film and yet is out there standingfor peace?
Money, Money, Money
There is one more reason, perhaps the primary reason for this show ofbrotherhood. It's money, honey! The overseas market for a Rajnikanth Tamil filmthat used to be Rs 1 crore in 2000 has risen meteorically to nearly Rs 12 crore.And more to the point, the overseas market is controlled by Sri Lankan Tamils.In fact, while traditionally Tamil films have always found takers in Malaysiaand Singapore because of the Tamils of Indian origin, the war in Sri Lanka hasdriven its Tamils to Europe, UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. AsLondon-based Sri Lankan Tamil K Karunamoorthy of Ayngaran International, a majordistributor of Tamil films says, "The overseas market for Tamil films isone quarter of the box office collection for Bollywood films and growing everyyear and is star-driven." No wonder that when it came to contributing tothe cause, Rajnikanth topped the list with Rs 10 lakh.
The Trickle Of Refugees Begins
While on the subject of Sri Lanka, once again refugees are finding their way toTN's shores as the army relentlessly marches to claim areas which were underLTTE control for several years. TN already has 75,000 refugees in 117 camps andnow the trickle has started. Last week, 100 refugees fled to islets betweenThalaimannar and Dhanushkodi. While the Navy and Coast Guard let in refugees,there's no way of telling whether the LTTE is impersonating them.