Thank God for the South, especially its cinema. What Delhi journalists or Bollywood's stars are unable to openly say, Tamil cinema does it loud and clear (laughing all the way from the box office to the bank): That the demonetisation of high-value currency last November 8, and the clumsy, complicated Goods and Services Tax in July, have both hurt the common person.

It's enough to make superstar Rajnikanth - whose on-screen bravery apparently doesn't translate to off-screen political commitment - change his mind about joining forces with the BJP in Tamil Nadu. (In any case, he missed his moment to take the plunge back in the late 1990s.)