It was in 2007 when India attempted to participate in the Rugby World Cup for the first time. While we did not make it past the Asian Qualification, it was an important milestone. But three years earlier, a then two-film-old director called SS Rajamouli decided to make a Lagaan-esque film featuring the sport of rugby, and set it in a college campus in Hyderabad. Basically, Rajamouli decided to tell a story featuring a sport that most hadn’t seen before, and yet, managed to keep the audience engaged for over 2.5 hours. Considering the scale of the achievements of the filmmaker since then, many might not talk about Sye (2004), but I consider the film as the perfect embodiment of the SS Rajamouli brand of cinema.
It didn’t matter if the story wasn’t novel. It didn’t matter if the template was familiar. There would be that SS Rajamouli touch that would elevate everything. The filmmaker’s conviction in the story he wanted to tell ensured he went all out to engage with the audience on his terms. He displayed this flair in his previous films, Student No 1 and Simhadri too. Many filmmakers before SS Rajamouli were clear that the majority of the audience needed entertainment, but he was among the select few who knew that this entertainment could truly become a phenomenon if it was backed by the right vision. A vision that told its audience that what they were going to watch wasn’t going to be just another film. They were coming for a spectacle, signed and stamped by the filmmaker, and they shouldn’t accept anything else. After Sye, Rajamouli went from strength to strength through Chatrapathi, Vikramarkudu, Yamadonga, Magadheera, Maryada Ramanna, Eega, Baahubali 1 and 2, and now, RRR.
Jr NTR and Ram Charan from RRR
ALSO READ |‘RRR is my favourite film’: Good Will Hunting star Minnie Driver says she watches SS Rajamouli’s blockbuster ‘every three months’
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Now, there’s no doubt that Rajamouli has changed how world cinema looks at Indian cinema. He has managed to abolish the long-standing misconception of how Indian cinema is defined by Hindi cinema. Such has been his success that the major players of Hindi cinema have started to call themselves Indian cinema, and some even put up a facade that they have always been batting for this umbrella term, ‘We are all Indian cinema.’ Funny that such statements were never made before the Rajamouli era. Anyway, I am digressing.
The reason why the Rajamouli stamp holds more value than any other filmmaker in today’s entertainment scene in India is the very simple fact that he makes global films without compromising on the outlandishness of South cinema (read Telugu) sensibilities. Now, one might argue that it is reductive to call quintessential South cinema as outlandish, but it is, and that is not a minus point by any stretch of imagination. Good South cinema is outlandish without taking the audience for granted. How can soldiers go flying into the enemy’s fort after using palm trees as catapults, one might ask. But when they land on the terrace, and continue their fight, you are immediately invested in seeing how these warriors come up trumps. How can a man be reborn as a fly wreak havoc in the life of the guy who killed him, one might ask. But when the fly takes a sharp needle, and almost pierces the bad man’s eyes, you root for the insect. How can two warriors, reincarnated in the present day, feel a literal spark whenever they touch each other, one might ask. But when you know the reason why the ‘touch’ is so special, we start feeling the same electricity in our veins. They say cinema is the willing suspension of disbelief. Considering how we are already in for the ride to suspend disbelief, why not go a few steps further, and relish in this suspension?
The relentless need of filmmakers to replicate a success formula isn’t a new thing. Even before Rajamouli, we had director Shankar elevating the vigilante trope to great heights that were emulated to varying degrees of success by filmmakers across the country. His template even gave birth to real-life political upheavals. But in many ways, 2007 was a marquee year for how South cinema was received across India. Shankar made Sivaji with Rajinikanth, which became a rage in the country. It kickstarted the Rs 100 crore club in India, and it coincided with the rise of social media. Of course, there were fans of the film, but there were also trolls who painted South cinema in a rather derogatory way. The barrage of dubbed South films on Hindi TV channels added to the craze for the genre of films, and the trolls for the same. It was in the same year that Rajamouli decided to take an important decision.
After the release of Yamadonga in 2007, Rajamouli decided to make his biggest film yet. The scale was big, the planning was huge, the budget was off the charts, and the pressure of delivering a blockbuster was immense. Magadheera was an important film for many reasons, and on hindsight, it was the first film where Rajamouli effectively executed technical wizardry without compromising on the core concept of the film. There were horses, helicopters, flying spears, barrage of bullets, hundred of people being slain one after another, two people cliff diving, and a lot more, and yet you remember the love story more than anything else. This became the USP of Rajamouli, and it was slowly becoming popular in the South. Magadheera was dubbed in multiple languages, and it was reaching ‘classic’ status thanks to its repeat value. But even now, he hadn’t yet captured the imagination of the Indian audience. For that a few other wheels had to be set in motion.
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Ram Charan and Kajal Aggarwal from Magadheera.
And that happened in 2008. AR Murugadoss joined hands with Aamir Khan to remake his 2005 Tamil film, Ghajini, and Prabhudeva collaborated with Salman Khan to make Wanted, the remake of the 2006 Telugu film, Pokkiri. Both these actors understood the changing tide among the audience, and they were the first movers of this trend. Hindi cinema with South sensibilities couldn’t be rubbed off as just a ‘joke’ anymore. Every hero worth their salt wanted to jump on this bandwagon. Shankar’s Enthiran, which was dubbed in Hindi as Robot, made the craze even crazier, showing the rest of India that vision, wizardry, and a strong emotional core were the tenets of South cinema. All this while, Rajamouli was biding his time, and readying his armory. In fact, post Magadheera, Rajamouli understood that massive spectacles were his cup of tea, and he was confident of hitting the bull’s eye every single time. He did that literally in Baahubali, but let’s get there later.
Between Magadheera and his seminal film, Eega, Rajamouli made a ‘quickie’ called Maryada Ramanna, inspired from Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality. Now, Rajamouli might not have yet become a household name, but slowly, his brand of cinema was making its way into Hindi cinema. His 2006 film Vikramarkudu was remade in multiple languages, including the Hindi version, Rowdy Rathore, headlined by Akshay Kumar. His Maryada Ramanna was remade in multiple languages, including the Hindi version, Son of Sardaar, headlined by Ajay Devgn. Interestingly, around the same time, Ajay had also starred in Singham, the Hindi remake of the Tamil film of the same name. The writing on the wall was clear, the bigwigs of Indian cinema, I mean, Hindi cinema knew all roads were leading to the South.
And still, Rajamouli didn’t make that big splash, yet. Even as Indian cinema weaved plaudits about a Hindi filmmaker who hadn’t delivered a flop in his four-film-old career, here was someone who had a eight-film unbeaten run where every film was a bonafide blockbuster. Nevertheless, Rajamouli wasn’t one to gloat, even if his films had the iconic image of a stamp bearing the caption ‘An SS Rajamouli Film’ being sealed onto the film’s posters and title cards. Then, in 2012, he released the prologue of his prowess. He made the most unlikely creature film, and even named it after the central creature. Eega was the first film where Rajamouli directly knocked on the doors of the major players of the Indian cinema market. It also became the first film to win him a National Award. It was the first Rajamouli film that was released in multiple languages, and it was also the first film that was truly mounted on the shoulders of the filmmaker, and ably supported by a terrific cast, including Sudeep, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, and Nani, and top-notch visual effects.
Eega Poster
People were now aware of the phenomenon of Rajamouli. They knew he was the new poster boy of South cinema representation. Still, still, years of stereotyping couldn’t be changed with just one reincarnated housefly. For that, you needed something that would change the landscape of cinema. You needed something that would change EVERYTHING. And that is exactly what Rajamouli did with the 2015 film, Baahubali.
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What the two instalments of Baahubali did to Indian cinema is one of the most well-documented chapters in cinema history. Shankar and Murugadoss opened the Rs 100 crore market, and Rajamouli created the Rs 1000 crore market. Presently, out of seven films in the list, there are three Telugu films (Rajamouli’s Baahubali 2 and RRR, Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898 AD), one Kannada film (Prashanth Neel’s KGF 2), three Hindi films, including Jawan, directed by the Tamil filmmaker Atlee.
With what Rajamouli is planning next, which is supposedly a globe-trotting adventure film featuring Mahesh Babu, there is no doubt that records would be broken. But what the filmmaker actually did was to break down the doors that many filmmakers from the South were relentlessly knocking at. Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada filmmakers making films in other languages, including Hindi wasn’t a new occurrence. But Rajamouli pushed the envelope so far that there was a new wave of films that tried to emulate his template.
Prabhas and Anushka Shetty from Baahubali 2
Most of the big-ticket films after Baahubali were planned as a two-parter. The success of his brand of films also saw the rise of multi-starrers and sequels. We saw it happen in KGF 2. We saw it happen in Devara. We are going to see it happen with Kantara. We saw it happen in Sapta Sagaradaache Ello. We are seeing it happen in the spy franchise at YRF.
Every promotion drive for any big-ticket film started to have the question of ‘Will there be a Part 2?’ Almost every big-ticket film started having open endings to ensure the doors to a potential sequel weren’t shut down. Everyone wanted to make big, bigger, and hopefully, better films. Rajamouli gave the confidence to South filmmakers to tell their stories in their own way without compromising on what really works for them in their own language. Also, filmmakers who only saw the commercial aspects of Rajamouli’s brand of cinema produced subpar films and it failed to connect with what we now call the pan-Indian audience.
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Not every film needed to be pan-Indian, but it became a game of ego for many superstars who wanted to release their film in multiple languages right from Day 1. Many filmmakers sold a hard sell, but they were called out sooner rather than later. Of course, in the midst of all this, Lokesh Kanagaraj successfully executed the idea of a cinematic universe with Vikram. The numbers associated with South films became mind-bogglingly high. The market for Tamil films grew bigger. The market for Malayalam films grew bigger in 2024. The market for Kannada films were opened up after KGF and Kantara, and it is just a matter of time before it delivers the next big film. But yes, these concepts started becoming a pan-Indian thing too. We had Rohit Shetty build the cop universe. We had Maddock Films and Amar Kaushik build the creature universe. And then, just like how, in 2008-12, almost all the big stars of Hindi cinema decided to take the South route, we now have the next generation of actors doing the same. Many are working with South filmmakers, remaking South films, and promoting their films in the South with unprecedented gusto.
ALSO READ: Chiranjeevi opens up about feeling ‘furious and insulted’ about treatment of South cinema, says ‘SS Rajamouli brought Indian cinema under one roof’
Yes, we are living in different times now, and the big players in the regional cinema markets, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi have been unified under the umbrella of Indian cinema. But make no mistake, it is the Rajamouli brand of cinema that continues to work wonders. Even if his films release in multiple languages, they are quintessentially Telugu cinema. Unlike many of his peers, he is not trying to micromanage a film, and tailor its measurements to appeal to everyone. He is making a housefly take vengeance. He is making a two-part historic film based on a mother’s revenge. He is making a revisionist tale about two freedom fighters who are fulfilling promises of their own. He is taking Telugu cinema to the global level, and telling everyone that this is Indian cinema instead of making pan-Indian films for the sake of it.
SS Rajamouli with Steven Spielberg and James Cameron
We might have a million problems with his films having an overdose of violence, problematic themes, and of course, too much masala, and all of those arguments are important and validated. But there is no doubt that, for all intents and purposes, today, the most prominent stamp on Indian cinema reads… ‘An SS Rajamouli Film.’