Before the internet’s omnipresence, Telugu stars were a little more important to their fans than other actors were to the fans within their cultures. Telugu stars weren’t just people performing roles. They were also representatives of a form of idealism that the youth could cherish. One could argue that other cinema cultures share a similar frenzy for its actors, but other dominant cultures also produced high-achieving but equally popular figures in other aspects of life. They had sports persons, musicians and artists between whom the collective consciousness could split its idolatry. The obvious exclusions are politicians — because viewing any politicians through the lens of idealism would make them appear contorted.
Being culturally landlocked with minimal influence from the outside in the 90s and a little after meant that the Telugu states had only one set of public figures who were loved en masse and who could (at least hypothetically) provide a guiding light on how to conduct oneself in public life — film stars.
How should we speak? What kind of music do we listen to? How brash must we be? How must we compose ourselves? And most importantly, who are we? These questions particularly haunt young men who with eagerness to express themselves often echo the loudest or the most confident voice.
That’s when Pawan Kalyan, the actor and star, came as an answer by expressing himself with an ease and carefreeness that the generation was craving. The previous generation had lost their idealism to the now-dead Left and the subsequent generation was looking for new heroes. Except they didn’t want someone who lived life like they were tasked with the burden of reforming society. They just wanted someone who wears their heart on their sleeve, someone who led a life where they eagerly anticipated playing cricket at the end of each week, or someone who gets yelled at by their dad but laughs it off. Someone to remind them that life isn’t all that serious but is fun and worth living.
And when Pawan Kalyan gets scolded by his father in Thammudu (1999), when his friends make fun of him for pining for a girl above his league in Tholi Prema (1998), when he gets rejected by a girl in Suswagatham (1998), or when he smokes vengefully to irritate a girl he loves in Kushi (2001), it felt like the perfect mix of representation and aspiration. He was goofy, likable, heroic, and most importantly, worth looking up to.
As an actor, he also ensured that he imported genres like blues, and pop into his films while mixing them with folk and classic film music. It was the perfect mix of here’s what we are and here’s what we can be. You can listen to Ricky Martin and be from a small town. You can be goofy and still be a 'hero'. Life didn’t necessarily have to have a noble purpose. You can dance badly even if everyone’s watching because who cares? Wear what you want. Sport a messy hairstyle. Lather it in Brylcreem. Sing an English song badly. If the previous generation was burdened by the lofty ideals of the Left, the generation that followed was unchained by a film star who was just being himself.
Nowhere is the liberation and cultural amalgamation he stood for more apparent than in the film Kushi — where he plays a Bengali man, singing Raj Kapoor’s songs, practicing Japanese martial arts, and emulating Michael Jackson's dance while fanboying Chiranjeevi.
But this cultural party which began to find shape in 1998 came to a rude halt in 2003 in the form of an experimental film called Johnny which Pawan Kalyan wrote, directed, and acted in. He pushed the envelope a bit too far; it just wasn’t everyone's glass of tea and it flopped big time. The film tells the story of a mixed martial arts fighter who needs to win fights to earn money and pay for his wife’s cancer treatment.
The film had shades of Ram Gopal Varma’s rawness and shares his obsession with Mumbai. But, Pawan overindulged. There are stray references to the Ali vs Norton boxing fights, rising Hindutva, Mumbai’s underworld, and countless other details that were lost on the audience, and the flaws were accentuated by the humorlessness of the film. Partly because it is melodramatic, and mostly because the dialogues are inaudible (owing to Pawan Kalyan experimenting with sync sound technique while recording dialogues) the film tanked at the box office. One could speculate that had RGV himself handled the film, it might have gotten the cinematic direction and shape that the wildness of Pawan’s energy and thoughts needed. Whatever the reasons were, Johnny killed the momentum of the star and his followers.
And more importantly, it stopped Pawan Kalyan from ever being vulnerable again on screen. He poured his heart into the film and the audience rejected his love letter to them. Had he watched his previous films he might have learned to laugh at the failure and come back with a smile but sadly he never recovered. He lost that freedom within himself and it reflected in his body of work: a string of mediocre films with none of his original ease. Even a decade later when he finally got a few blockbusters it never recreated the same euphoria - just showed glimpses of what existed at one point in time.
Now even as Pawan Kalyan re-enters the Telugu consciousness as a politician of the future, it feels like an awkward fit. The freedom he once represented doesn’t sit with the nobleness of his purpose or the moral ambiguity of his new profession. The anti-climax of it all — as if the host of a rave turned up dressed in khakis to arrest the attendants — is tragic. So a generation that briefly found freedom was suddenly reminded that parties get over and the drudgery of life takes over. Freedom was a fleeting mirage of youth. If the previous generation had been let down by an ideology, the next generation of men were reminded that the exuberance of youth is illusory. Life will move on. We have to do jobs where employers expect machine-level labor, EMIs grow and hairlines recede, and ultimately one must dance cautiously because society is watching us at all times.
If only Johnny was a blockbuster or even a half-decent film, the cultural party might have lasted a little longer, the youth’s vitality could have been extended, and we could have all danced freely for a few more seconds. But it wasn’t to be. That zeal left the actor, his young fans, and the culture as a whole. But those who heard the music in their minds and danced with freedom for those few fleeting years could afford a smile while whistling the tune of ‘Mera Joota Hai Japani’, reciting the names of prominent Bengalis and swishing an imaginary Katana… before a sudden internet ping swallows them back into their daily grind.