Superstar Rajinikanth defies all conventional analyses-no one has reigned supreme for as long as he has in the world of Indian cinema. With over 150 films under his belt, many of them blockbusters, he still plays the hero at seventy, and the devotion of his legions of fans has not waned during the forty-odd years of his stardom. Rajinikanth: A Life is the best account yet of the man who was born Shivaji Rao Gaekwad-once a coolie and a bus conductor in Bangalore and now virtually a god in Tamil Nadu.