Nagarjuna, like fine wine, seems to only get better with age. Years pass him like water on a duck’s back. I saw a few promos of his latest movie – King. What can I say? He truly looks like a king, the type who gets wooed by princesses galore. He has a smile that can charm you off your last penny. His demeanour puts the fairer sex at ease faster than you can spell his name. Any number of heroines put him atop a very short list of heroes that they would love to work with. Again and again, if they can have their way. He was the first of the macho heroes in Tollywood. No six packs for him. But he is fit in a way that can make a teenager turn green with envy. Even Tollywood’s gaudy costume designers have not managed to disturb his elegant sense of dressing. This by itself speaks volumes about the way he presents himself on screen. He heralded the era of minimalism for heroes in Tollywoood. Remember Siva? Nagarjuna speaks so less, but his character spits fire and brimstone all the same. His left handed punches have floored my heart any number of times.
Over the years his sense of comic timing has improved leaps and bounds. This perhaps is the reason why women simply cannot have enough of him. Tall, fair, handsome and with sense of humour to boot with - trust me when I say this; women will walk on broken glass to say “hi” to such a man. They still do. Manmadhudu, Santosham are examples of how a hero can do the ordinary things and still be heroic. Mass was a just reminder that he can still appeal to the galleries. But even that title could not hide the class in him. Nagarjuna has one fault – he cannot look anything but handsome. Even his violence seems to have a measured sense of class in it. He has a son who is all set to make his debut. And yet he can romance a 25-year old with credibility that a few 30-year olds will find hard to summon. Bollywood has its share of Khans, but you can see the effort that they put in – the endless hours at the gym, the sessions with the surgeons and stuff. Nagarjuna will have none of those excesses. It would be a sacrilege for him to strive hard to look good!
Save for Krishna in his heydays, there never has been an actor in Tollywood who has and continues to encourage new talent, the way Nagarjuna does. Ram Gopal Verma was given his first break by Nagarjuna. Krishna Vamsi was catapulted into mainstream Telugu Cinema with a Nagarjuna-Tabu starrer. Not many people are aware of this, but Nagarjuna is a fine student of commercial cinema. Very few in the industry have the capacity to assess risk the way he does. Gitanjali (directed by Mani Ratnam) was a heroine-centric movie that Nagarjuna agreed to star in, without batting an eyelid. Today it remains a classic. The heroine is long gone. And Gitanjali will always be associated with Nagarjuna. For all the glamour that he is associated with he has essayed a few remarkably unglamorous roles. Annamayya, Ramadasu are roles that he gave his everything and more. He was saintly in a manner that people revered him. Off the screen he is a family man who loves his privacy. Mahesh Bhatt once called him richer than the Nizam. That he may be, but his true richness lies in his uncomplicated approach to life. May he have more of it.
Happy Birthday Nagarjuna.
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