For people in the Hindi film industry, it was surreal because we don’t see such events around Bollywood films and, therefore, such euphoria around Hindi film stars. The craze for the three superstars of RRR, viz. S.S. Rajamouli, Jr. NTR and Ram Charan was to be seen to be believed. Although the RRR pre-release event was on the outskirts of Bangalore city, crowds thronged the venue as if it were in their neighbourhood.
There were dances performed by trained dancers, on songs from past Telugu films of Ram Charan as there were from past films of Jr. NTR. A special tribute was paid to late Puneeth Rajkumar with dancers performing on various hit songs of the very popular star.
And, of course, there were dance performances on RRR songs too. As a bonus, music director M.M. Keeravani and his singers even sang songs from the film prompting the crowds to go berserk while cheering for them.
Producer D.V.V. Danayya spoke from his heart and so did K. Venkat Narayana, the Karnataka distributor of the film in all languages, who is also a big producer of Kannada films. The extraordinary event was organised by his company, K.V.N. Productions. He also presented trophies to Rajamouli, Danayya and others.
In spite of heavy police bandobast and the presence of bouncers by the dozens, the sea of fans was uncontrollable. The craze to see their favourite stars in flesh and blood was so much that the fans didn’t care that they were being driven behind umpteen times by lathi-wielding policemen and tough bouncers whenever the lucky ones managed to surge ahead and catch a glimpse of the stars from very close quarters. Hundreds of footwear strewn all over the open-air ground where the event was held on 19th March bore testimony to the fact that many fans may have returned home that night without their shoes/chappals but they went back with memories to be cherished for a lifetime. It was hysteria at its best when Jr. NTR and Ram Charan were invited on the dais towards the end of the event. They took the cake when they shook hands, RRR style — where they actually shake forearms!
Karnataka chief minister Basavaraja Bommai graced the occasion as the chief guest. Karnataka health minister Dr. K. Sudhakar was also present. Prominent actor Dr. Shiva Rajkumar drew thunderous rounds of applause when he came on the dais to speak.
In a brief conversation with Information after the event, Jr. NTR shocked us by revealing that the crowds “were not huge” because of limited notice about the show. The extravagant event was planned in quite a hurry. The superstar added that the maximum crowds in his career so far had been witnessed for a similar pre-release event of an earlier film (Andhrawala) of his. It may surprise many to know that Jr. NTR has never watched his own films in a cinema hall with the public, much as he would love to do so. That’s because when he did go for watching one of his starrers in a theatre many years ago, the crowds got so distracted that they stopped watching the film and instead went on to watch the star in flesh and blood. “That’s when I decided that I can’t spoil people’s fun merely because I want to watch a film with them. And I’ve never gone for another cinematic experience for my own film, after that day,” concluded Jr. NTR. He added, after a pause, “Though, I might add here, I want to experience RRR in a public show.”
Jr. would do well to come for that cinematic experience to Bombay and watch the Hindi version of RRR with, what one anticipates would be, huge and cheering crowds. After all, this will mark Jr. NTR’s foray into Hindi cinema.
P.S.: The actor speaks good Hindi “because Hindi was my first (main) language in school, Telugu was the secondary language”. For the uninitiated, Jr.’s mother-tongue is Kannada.
