Living up to a role

By Desaraju Surya

The year: 1993.

The film: Mutha Mestri.

Chiranjeevi plays a labour leader-turned-politician in the film directed by A Kodandarami Reddy. It was the only time that Chiru donned a politician’s cap in his 148 movies.The character in the film Subhas Chandra Bose, a labour leader in a vegetable market, becomes a minister rather by accident. Bose, as a minister, tries to cleanse a system that had been depriving the poor of their livelihood. At the end, Bose is offered the Chief Minister’s post but he humbly rejects it and bids adieu to politics.“Don’t think I am quitting politics in toto. I shall come back at an appropriate time to play a major role,” Bose asserts, as a parting shot.Somehow, that role had cast a spell on Chiranjeevi’s fans. Ever since, they had been longing to see him as a politician to “cleanse” the “system.”Chiranjeevi, who was at the peak of his stardom in the film industry, quietly used to brush aside all such talk.The star, however, took up social service activities like blood donation and eye donation through his Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust and won acclaim from all quarters. He also was part of the Heroes AIDS awareness campaign along with Hollywood actor Richard Gere and Kamal Hassan. These activities have endeared him to the masses and made him an icon-of-sorts.In 2003, there was widespread anticipation of Chiranjeevi taking a political plunge either by launching his own party or by joining the Telugu Desam, then in power. The silver jubilee function of his blockbuster movie Indra was supposed to be his political launch pad but Chiranjeevi belied all expectations.Cut to 2008, 15 years down the line. At long last, Chiranjeevi bids adieu to films to take a political plunge. A “turning point” in his life, as he himself put it!