Mirror heads to ground zero of the Baahubali phenomenon whose colossal sets are now a tourist draw
Jaideep Unudurti (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 19, 2017)

The Outer Ring Road cuts through the suburban sprawl of Greater Hyderabad. This unprepossessing mix of tech parks, industrial belts and concrete housing is the gateway to a more fabulous place — the land of Mahishmati, as made famous by the Baahubali movies. It is a city of illusion itself nested within another fantasy kingdom — Ramoji Film City. As I get on the tour bus, the sheer size of over 2000 acres is overwhelming. We are all here for the ‘Baahubali Premium Experience’, a tour of some of the sets built for the films which were in production for nearly half a decade. The bus has tourists from all over India, mostly families with their kids.

Amid them is a more exotic visitor — Anna from Siberia. Anna who now teaches in Hyderabad had earlier moonlighted here as a “background artist” — foreigners dropped into cafes or other sets to pass them off as foreign locales. “This is my first time in Ramoji as a tourist” she says with a laugh.

The guide races through his patter, pointing out the attractions to the right and left of us. Hands wielding smartphones go up in sync with his rapid-fire exposition. There are over 120 themed gardens. Some are specialised — a cactus garden is the backdrop for ‘sad songs’, while the Ooty garden is ideal as a “hill station or suicide point”. There is also a garden whose exterior is Mughal while the interior resembles Brindavan Gardens — that staple of songs in the 1980s. It is used to shoot both marriage receptions and to host actual receptions. If you were a fan of Jean Baudrillard and his theory of hyper-reality, you would place this in the second order of simulation: “The representation has become as real as the thing it represents.”

All the buildings are like Rubik cubes, one side of the airport can be used as a church and the other as hospital and so on. But all these are vaguely familiar, having appeared in countless films - over 2000 have been shot here since 1996. The main attraction for the visitors is clearly Baahubali world.



The love of Telugu film-makers for gargantuan spectacle is nothing new — Gunasekhar delivered one of Mahesh Babu’s biggest hits with Okkadu, known for its colossal Charminar set. But the scale of Baahubali was unprecedented. This becomes apparent as we drive out into a large flat plain enclosed by a wall. A signboard welcomes us: “Welcome to Mahishmati”. The guide tells me that they are planning to tear down the sets in January, so this is very much a limited- time offer.

As we walk in, the most dominating feature is a massive central block, reminiscent of the stone chariot in Hampi as well as the Mayan pyramids augmented with enormous horses. The architecture might be ancient but the makers have shrewdly captured a most modern innovation — the selfie. Everywhere are cardboard cut-outs of the actors performing their trademark moves at the spot where they were filmed (for example when Prabhas climbs the elephant).

In the central square, there is a queue as people leap into the cage in which Devasena was held captive. Speakers loop the “punch dialogues”, for example, Mera vacchan hi shashan hai, for each spot. This soundtrack is punctuated by shrill whistles of the security guards who routinely stop enthusiasts from clambering onto the elephants and other props such as Bhallaladeva’s killer chariot.

At another cut-out, children clamour to be skewered by Baahubali’s sword. The photo point with the steps leading to the throne is still selfie-central; as you look at the blue panels where the rest of the city would have been filled in with computer graphics, you marvel at how the props were woven into the frame. In Hollywood, there has been a movement away from physicality as everything can be “green-screened”, but in Tollywood, despite the advent of the machines, some things are best left in the ‘desert of the real’.

I spot Anna again, under one of the giant horses. Is everything as dramatic as you imagined it? “I must say yes. Of course, the movie looked grander — but even if the set was empty, I could imagine the characters living in it”.

Outside the centre are the enormous headless trunk and legs of the statue of Bhallaladeva which plays a role in one of the key action sequences in the film. Denuded of context, the colossal blocks look like something out of Chirico or Dali.

As I look around, there is a possibility that these ephemeral constructions of PVC and cardboard may be reincarnated as something more enduring — as Amravati, the new capital of Andhra Pradesh coming up nearly 300 kilometres away. The Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu, as befitting a son-in-law of the legendary NTR, ordered elements of Mahishmati to be blended into the final look of the new capital. The original design by foreign architects lacked “nativity”, as they would say in Tollywood. A Baudrillard fan would call this the third order of simulation, i.e. “the representation precedes the real, and in fact, produces it.”

It is not hard to see why Naidu wants this, “The sets looked spectacular overall, like entering another time — there was a feeling of greatness and glory,” Anna says.

Hyper-reality or not, the Bahubali brand is now a key part of the public imagination. Before the second part came out, “Who killed Katappa?” became a catchphrase. The tour is over and the crowds head to the adjacent “Mahishmati food court”. The enthusiasm of the children showed no signs of abating. One can easily see the “property” mutating and enduring like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.

I ask Anna, why was Baahubali so successful across so many languages and cultures? “It is mythology, but without the Gods”.