In 1988, Chiranjeevi went to Delhi to receive the Nargis Dutt Award for Rudraveena. He returned with the award and a bad memory he would carry for over three decades. Speaking at the Acharya pre-release event in 2022, the Megastar recalled how the walls of the National Film Awards auditorium that evening were lined with photographs of Hindi cinema legends while the greatest names of South Indian cinema, from NT Rama Rao to Dr Rajkumar to Sivaji Ganesan, were nowhere to be seen.

“As I went to receive the award in the auditorium, the walls were adorned with pictures of Indian film legends, right from Prithviraj Kapoor to Raj Kapoor to Dilip Kumar, and so on,” Chiranjeevi said. He recalled that the awards ceremony was in the evening, preceded by high tea in the hall. The walls were meant to celebrate the history and grandeur of Indian cinema.

But as he looked for the faces that had shaped cinema for hundreds of millions of people across South India, he found almost nothing. “From South India, I saw only Prem Nazir from Malayalam and MGR and Jayalalithaa together in one picture from Tamil, and none of the other greats from the South,” he said. He named the legends he expected to see but were conspicuous by their absence: Dr. Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, NT Rama Rao, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Sivaji Ganesan and Savitri.

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“They were demigods to us. And there were no pictures of them. For me, it was humiliating. I felt very sad,” he said.

Chiranjeevi said he saw it as a reflection of how the national establishment viewed South Indian cinema at the time. “They projected only Hindi cinema as Indian cinema. And they dismissed other industries as regional language cinema. They didn’t even bother to acknowledge their contribution,” he said.

In a separate interview around the same period, he elaborated further. “I was greatly pained that Telugu cinema, the industry that gave me fame, name and dignity, was nowhere in the picture. It had no identity of its own,” he said. The film for which Chiranjeevi received the National Award that evening was Rudraveena, directed by K. Balachander and produced by Chiranjeevi and Nagendra Babu under Anjana Productions, the family’s first production house, named after their mother Anjana Devi. The Nargis Dutt Award it received is one of the most prestigious categories at the National Film Awards, specifically recognising films that promote national unity.

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Chiranjeevi’s speech at the Acharya pre-release event came at a time when the relationship between Hindi cinema and South Indian cinema had changed dramatically. By 2022, S.S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali franchise had shattered every box office record in Indian cinema. RRR had won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Pushpa had turned Allu Arjun into a national phenomenon. KGF had made Yash a household name across the Hindi belt. The idea that Indian cinema meant only Hindi cinema was no longer tenable.

Chiranjeevi acknowledged the shift. “After so many years, today I feel so proud. I can thump my chest. Our industry proved that we are no longer a regional cinema. Telugu cinema has removed these barriers,” he said.