Days before Dasara hits the screens, Telugu star Nani feels like a student awaiting his test results. Though he is confident about excellent reports, the Telugu star has set his eyes on the top score—Dasara, transitioning from being a multilingual film to a pan-India experience. While industries across languages have been obsessed with the ‘pan-India’ tag lately, Nani exercises caution as he shares what the term means for him. It cannot be engineered; it has to be earned, believes the actor.

“If the entire country watches a film and falls in love with it, it becomes pan India. Writing on the poster that a film is available in five different languages [doesn’t make a film pan India]; by that logic, every film is already pan India. Dasara is a multilingual film, but if everyone watches it and it becomes a blockbuster and the talk of the nation, then I will proudly call it a pan-Indian film. March 30th will be my test,” says Nani of the period action adventure film written and directed by debutant Srikanth Odela.

Nani believes that the only Indian artiste, at the moment, who can claim the blinding faith of the diverse Indian audience is his Eega director S S Rajamouli. “While making a movie itself, Rajamouli sir can say that [his project] is a pan-Indian film because he knows the whole country is waiting to watch his movies. But me? I don’t know,” says the actor, while adding that he is sure of how Dasara has shaped up.

Nani claims that after the first narration by Odela, he was certain that Dasara had the potential to become one of his career-best moves. After filming, the Telugu star proudly claims that the film has exceeded his expectations. “I knew if we mounted it right, this could become much bigger than our anticipation. Something about my director convinced me that he was going to be the next big thing. I could sense a certain honesty in him.”

Since the trailer launch, there has been talk that Nani’s Dasara shares similarities with Allu Arjun’s Pushpa. While some believe that the similarity stems from Odela’s previous association with Pushpa director Sukumar, Nani is quick to cast off the idea.

“Srikanth didn’t work on Pushpa, but I am sure he learnt technical expertise [from him]. The world of Dasara is inspired by his own life. His father worked as a truck driver for 40 years in the coal mines. These comparisons with Pushpa are happening because, like Allu Arjun, I am also sporting a messy hair look. But in any rural village, every guy looks like that,” he says, hoping the comparisons will end once the film releases.