For Ram Charan Delhi rhymes with leisure activity, the kathi rolls of Khan Market, a Japanese meal in Wasabi restaurant and a little freedom from crazy fans. However, in this heat, the Telugu star turned up to launch a wellness app with Deepak Chopra. We meet in Taj Mahal Hotel’s Machan restaurant and even before we settle down, Ram declares that he is vegan these days. So cheese goes out of the vegetable sandwiches that we had already ordered. “First I became vegetarian and now I am vegan for the last month or so. Let’s see how long it lasts. It is not for a role,” he clarifies. “Whenever I feel the need to cleanse myself, whenever I feel I have enough of party food, it’s time to detox. I just had a wedding in my family....” We get the link.
With every film his diet changes for a few months. “Mostly, when I am shooting in Hyderabad the food comes from home. My mother sends vegetarian food with a small portion of a non vegetarian dish. Mothers are the best cooks. They just have to cut down a bit on oil.” Ram says it is all about arriving at a right proportion. “We, sometimes, eat for two meals. As if we are not going see that dish again. I don’t eat more than 300-400 gms per meal. Be it dal chawal or dosa, the figure doesn’t cross 400,”
He swears by his mother’s fish curry but his all-time favourite is his dad Chiranjeevi’s steamed dosa which is made without oil. “My dad sat with the family chef and cracked the recipe. In the South we call it Chiranjeevi or Chiru dosa. For the last 15 years we are eating it. It is healthy. Every actor in Bollywood has tried this dosa in our home. And they return to have an encore,” exclaims Ram.
Unlike his father, Ram is gym fit. “It is about awareness. They were not aware. Right now we have lot of experts to tell us the dos and don’ts. In his days, there were not many gym trainers. The training was more kushti -like with big dumbbells. I think if they had the same exposure and awareness, our fathers would have looked much better than us.” However, actors like Chiranjeevi and Mohanlal have the charisma that after a few minutes into the film you tend to forget their size. “An actor is an actor not a fitness person after all and that’s what he believed in,” underlines Ram. “Also, every character doesn’t demand an aspirational figure.”
It has been almost three years since his Hindi debut Zanjeer hit the screens and Ram has not signed another Hindi film. “I didn’t ask for it. It came my way and I embraced it. We did our best but it didn’t work out. Again, by the end of this year, I might sign my second Hindi film. If there is a good script I am not going to hold myself back but I am not going to run behind producers and say please cast me. When they feel that I suit a certain subject I believe they will come to me.”
With films like Magadheera , Yevadu and the recent Bruce Lee , Ram is cementing his position as a mass hero. Is that the way forward for him? “If there is a character, I will definitely change track. You don’t need to play hero all the time. The day you start thinking that I have to do only these kinds of roles that is the beginning of your end.” He cites the example of his next release Dhruva which is a remake of the Tamil hit Thani Oruvan. “It is unlike my other films. Here the villain, (played by Arvind Swamy) is bigger than the hero and there are no usual trappings of song and dance.”
It is not just Ram; the general image of Telugu cinema is of an industry which churns out only mass entertainers. However, this year Baahubali has shown that if done well box office appeal doesn’t come in the way of securing a National Award. “I don’t say no to the perception. Of course, we have to change. The point is our audience, in two-hour time, want to experience all the nine emotions, which is difficult to achieve. I am not trying to put anybody down but I feel it is easier to make a 90-minute songless film around one emotion than putting together a masala Indian film. Song chahiye , rona chahiye , fight chahiye , drama chahiye , romance chahiye . It is difficult, but if you crack it right, the possibilities are huge as it happened with films like Baahubali and Magadheera,” says Ram, charming with his Hindi.
The sandwich arrives with orange juice, and the conversation returns to food. “When I go out, I try Japanese and Peruvian food.” Peruvian is new for me. “It is South American food full of salads. They have lot of uncooked stuff fetched from Amazon forest. At times, you wonder whether you can eat it or not.” His wife Upasana is more into continental stuff while for Ram Indian delicacies constitute staple food. “One day, I try continental and the second day she shares Indian with me. That’s how we meet,” Ram gushes.
The media often complains that stars from the South are not as accessible as their Bollywood counterparts. “We believe in the conventional way. Do your job, go home and let your work speak. I am not saying what we are doing is right but it is working out for us. It’s same like politicians. If you do good work for five years, you don’t need an expensive political campaign. I like interacting once in a while but it is becoming too much now-a-days. It seems some of us are doing more media interactions than movies,” he grins.
Many cook to release stress but Ram has a different story all together. “Whenever my film is about to release, I have lots of stress. So how do I release the stress? I start cooking. There are times when I try to cook a turkey like a thanksgiving dinner thing in the US but it turns out to be another bird! Nobody could eat it. Even my cook, who supports me, says sir, ‘it is bad.’ But this is my way of letting out stress. I do it every time. Perhaps, I cook under so much stress that nobody could eat it. Not even me! So I feed it to the crows.” That’s offbeat!
