Nuvvu manishivaa...(Are you a human or...)?

There are two apellations that invariably follow this half of the question: Mohan Babu or Balakrishna. It doesn't take even the average Telugu movie producer's intelligence to understand what the question implies: that either of the above names has a way of making the impossible seem like a trip to the grocery store. That is, unfortunately, your curse if you are a South Indian movie star. You are the only one who's convinced that's true.

Sometimes, that conviction pays off. Other times it just doesn't. There will always be the "inner circle": the "mass" who occupy the cheapest tickets closest to their idol and the fans associations who will string 20-foot high cut-outs of you with plastic-ball garlands. There will always be the familiar hurricane of paper-strips and 10p coins on the "first-day-first-show", even if it's the only day the movie plays at the theater. Then there will be those who will denounce such paltry behavior, the purists who expect every movie to be an Adoor Gopalakrishnan- (or at least Mani Ratnam-) style mind-blower. "Hah! Telugu movies," they say disparagingly (coming out of the movie theater), "waste of time and money." Then there will be critics who sit through the drill to write hilariously caustic commentaries (such as the links above, thanks to Mithun Verma of FullHyderabad.com).

And occasionally, there will be people with such perverted senses of humor (meaning me) that will pay for a good laugh - at all the wrong times! Be it the various methods that you threaten your on-screen villains with (kanti-choopu, chitikina-velu, mola-taadu); be it the decimation of the bad guys (in one Balakrishna movie, a chicken kills the villain's strong man); or be it your audacity to try coming across as an Indian classical dance teacher (when you look and move like a painted buffalo with an identity crisis). The point is, not everyone who comes to watch your movie necessarily likes you.

But your movies are thought-provoking, nonetheless, though the thoughts are not those intended by the movie-makers. I think about why people take the trouble to bring heroines (some that I like) to dance (sometimes amazingly choreographed steps) alongside Your Gaucherie. And listen to blatantly crass double-entendre and pretend to fall in love with you for that. I think about how difficult it must be for a stuntman to try impersonating you, or to act like you're actually beating the crap out of him. I think about the thankless job of your make-up artist and fashion designer. And I think about what you must think to believe that this will be digestible fare for your audience. The courage of your convictions.

Nenu manishine (I am human). I firmly affirm once and for all that I am not a fan of Balakrishna.

But I do admire his conviction, as proof of the power of mind over matter.