When Girish Mathrubootham, the Chennai-based founder and CEO of Freshdesk, a cloud-based customer service software provider, met his "hero, inspiration and our Thalaivar, SuperStar Rajinikanth" recently, he summed up his experience in just two words- "Jenma Sabalyam", or "Janmasāphalya".
Through the Sanskrit words meaning "attainment of the object or end of existence", Girish described the overwhelming feeling of meeting the man in "flesh and blood, feeling his touch, spellbound by his words and touched by the warmth of his heart."
Girish is a self-confessed Rajinkanth fan and last year Freshdesk booked entire shows at Sathyam cinemas in Chennai for its employees to watch the Rajini-starrer "Kabali". The company had also booked movie halls for its employees during the release of "Kochadaiiyaan" and "Lingaa". The story goes that Girish had watched "Enthiran" a week before he founded the company and considers Rajinikanth a mascot of sorts.
On Sunday morning, Girish, along with his wife and two kids met the actor at the latter's residence, and wrote of his surreal account in his blog-post on Medium.
The family was received by the Superstar's staff who asked them if they would like to drink anything.
"We quickly refused not wanting to waste any time. But we were told that Thalaivar is ready but won’t meet us unless we have something. We were offered some buttermilk. We all grabbed the buttermilk quickly and finished it in a gulp," Girish wrote.
They were then ushered into a room where they were welcomed by none other than the man himself.
Of seeing his icon face-to-face for the first time, Girish wrote, "His shocking simplicity hits you hard. He was wearing a simple white long-sleeved shirt and a dhoti. A chain of rudrakshas adorned his neck and he was wearing a slim leather-strapped watch with a black dial. It looked very elegant."
They spoke about several things- from what Freshdesk does to how Girish absolutely adored him and the gifts they had got for the star.
However, the sheer enormity of meeting Rajinikanth in person left both Girish and his wife tongue-tied at times. The actor though, he wrote, made sure to make them feel comfortable.
“So, like an expert interviewer trying to calm down a tensed interviewee, he asked me some easy questions like what are my hobbies etc. I felt happy and stupid at the same time."
Girish found Freshdesk in 2010 and the company was listed as one of the Next Billion-Dollar Startups by Forbes in October last year.
Read his full blog-post here.