(Wrote this short review for India Today)
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It’s rare to find good personal writing in cinema books – the sort that can deal intelligently and capaciously with a chosen topic while also bringing the author’s life and concerns into the frame. Mukesh Manjunath’s The Age of Heroes – about the cult of “heroes” in Telugu cinema, and how the relationship between superstar/deity and adoring fan plays out across such fault-lines as caste, class and gender – is a fine exception. Consider a moving passage where he mentions his grandmother’s obsession with the superstar NT Rama Rao, whom she never got a chance to see in person: “During her youth all she wanted was someone like NTR in her life […] That was the first time she even knew she could fantasise about another man.” The story culminates in the author realising why he was always her favourite grandchild – because he was born on NTR’s birthday and she saw him as an answer to her prayers for a glimpse of her idol. 
Many people – especially those who don’t get the appeal of popular cinema and popular movie stars – will scoff at such a story, or be offended that a cherished real-life relationship should be forged under the shadow of obsessive fandom. But these are very real, and very nourishing, aspects of the cinema-viewer bond – they have been since the beginnings of the medium – and South India has had many divinities who began as screen icons and later moved on to political careers; in the process coming to represent many important things to their followers. Manjunath examines this complex story as it has unfolded over the past seven decades.
He discusses the lingual differences and post-Independence histories of the Telugu-speaking regions, starting with the formation of Andhra Pradesh in the 1950s, and the effect of folk-tales on popular cinema. He speaks to fans to try and understand what they mean when they say mystical-sounding things like “there is an aura around Chiranjeevi”. There is an illuminating chapter about the “female hero” Vijayashanthi, who blazed a trail across the Telugu film universe in the 1980s and 1990s. And there is a fascinating section about Erra or Red Cinema, and its founding deity R Narayana Murthy – films with protagonists from historically oppressed castes, very conscious of their oppression (as opposed to the more broadly defined vigilante figures). In this chapter he discusses the much-criticised film Arjun Reddy in terms that may not be immediately clear to a non-Telugu viewer – the star Vijay Deverakonda’s brandishing of the Telengana accent “like a sword”, bringing coolness and legitimacy to a dialect that was once seen as crude or impure. This is notable, being a reminder that a “problematic” character who can be seen as an oppressor or a bully in one context (as Arjun Reddy might be in terms of his treatment of women) can on another level be a subaltern hero for a marginalised group.
Early on, Manjunath clarifies that this book isn’t just for those who know Telugu cinema and culture well. This reviewer was glad for his own familiarity with some films discussed here – such as the brilliant 1951 fantasy Pathala Bhairavi, or the mythological Daana Veera Soora Karna, in which NTR played Karna, Duryodhana and Krishna – but also learnt much about the subtexts surrounding those films, and what they represented to the local culture, e.g. how a story’s villain (SV Ranga Rao as the wicked sorcerer in Pathala Bhairavi) is shown to be an outsider through his distorted pronunciations, or how a Rajasthani setting is reshaped and appropriated for Telugu viewers.
The Age of Heroes was completed in 2019, which makes the contemporary references feel dated (RRR is referred to as an upcoming film), and the editing is occasionally sloppy. But this is offset by the fact that the writing is funny in a wry, conversational way – it feels like the author is chattering directly to you. This warm and informative book can open new windows for film buffs hoping to broaden their understanding of the many worlds that exist under the umbrella term “Indian cinema”.
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