Here Is Why Birthday Boy Mahesh Babu Doesn’t Need Bollywood

Mahesh Babu is 51. To celebrate his birthday, director SS Rajamouli released the first look of Mahesh Babu as Rudhra in his upcoming film Varanasi. As you can see, he looks no more than 40. His youthfulness is a perennial problem for his heroines, including Priyanka Chopra.

Once, during a conversation, I asked Mahesh Babu if he misses being a pan-India star. His reply was revealing of his self-content personality. “It isn’t as if I haven’t had offers. There have been lots of offers. But none exciting enough to head to Bollywood. Why should I plunge into an unknown territory when I am so much loved by Telugu audiences?”

Mahesh Babu is right. He doesn’t need Bollywood. Doing a Hindi film is not going to change the slightest thing in his equation with his fan base.

At 51, Mahesh Babu remains a boy-man on screen whom you won’t find straying from the straight-and-narrow path unless it is to teach the villains a lesson.

The Mahesh Babu brand of family entertainment is here to stay. This is the sanitized but mischievous world of Sooraj Barjatya when it collides with Basu Chatterjee’s wispy comedy. Mahesh Babu is at once Everyman and Superman. He plays what Salman Khan once played in Barjatya’s cinema. But with a lot more spice than before.

Mahesh Babu’s sense of self-righteousness never becomes a burden. He is upright. But he is not a bore. Yes, he can fix the world that he inhabits. We can depend on him.

Even while pandering to the public , Mahesh Babu never stops respecting his audience. That’s what makes him so special.

I once asked him how he manages to look so young. He laughed and replied, “I don’t do anything extraordinary to look the way I do. It is God-given. All I do is eat the correct food, sleep well, exercise moderately… never overdo anything. Staying off food and over-exerting oneself in the gym could land you in the hospital.”

Mahesh Babu’s birthdays are for his fans. “It is fans who make my birthday special. However, the volume of well-wishers gets overwhelming. So I like to be out of the country for most of my birthdays.”

Ask Mahesh the secret of his Peter Pan looks, and he smiles, “Positive thinking, healthy eating, correct hours of sleep and a family to support you through all your dreams and nightmares.”

One never sees Mahesh being anything but extremely proper in his public conduct. Doesn’t he ever wish to let go? “Of course I let go when I am with my family. In public, one has to be very careful about one’s conduct specially when one has an example to set. If you have been given some amount of fame, it means it comes to you with a purpose. One has to make sure one is doing the right things and making the right moves so that the people around are happy and comfortable. For a public figure, setting the right example is not just a moral obligation; it is an ethical compulsion.”

Mahesh Babu has ensured a normal upbringing for his children. “Being a child actor, my parents made sure I didn’t miss out on a normal childhood. Only when I was on my father’s sets was I made to feel special. I travelled to school by bus and was given limited pocket money. No splurging, no pampering for any of us five siblings. We were never allowed to feel like children of a big star. That’s how I want my children Gautam and Sitara to feel.”