Breakfast with Chiru

“How about having breakfast together tomorrow?” Chiranjeevi asked me. I jumped at the idea. The one thing I cannot forget is having  'Chiranjeevi dosa' at the megastar's house. 

You get it at Chutney's if you ask for it. It is also called a steam dosa. But when it was introduced in Chutney's they got the recipe from the actor himself and named it after him. There was a time I visited Chiranjeevi's house frequently - at least once a fortnight. This was because he used to write a column for TOI and I would sit with him about that. "I'm inviting Sushil over for breakfast tomorrow," he told his wife Surekha one day after our meeting at his residence. “Of course yes,” she said. 

 Practically every film star who Chiranjeevi is close to has had the 'Chiranjeevi dosa' at his house. I had it with non-veg that he personally served along with it and the taste can get as good as it gets every time I am reminded of it. 

Chiranjeevi was once shooting for a film in a village in Karnataka several years ago. He happened to have breakfast from an eatery and immense liked the dosa that was made there. Chiranjeevi recalled when he asked the eatery owner for the recipe he refused to give it to him. Back home in Hyderabad, Chiranjeevi who could not forget the taste, sat down with his wife and decided to discover the recipe. He described the taste to her and in due course, after experimenting over a few times, he finally got the 'original taste' that he so much wanted.

Chiranjeevi may have discovered a 'recipe' but he is a self-made man. He narrated to me how he worked on getting into films and how he carved a niche for himself. On the sets, I've noticed that he makes it a point to encourage everyone who merits it. At a fight sequence that he was shooting at the University College for Women at Koti, he appreciated the fight master and the fighters shooting with him for what was an important fight sequences. 

I must recollect an incident I was witness to when we drove from Koti to his house at Jubilee Hills. I was sitting with him in the car and he noticed something amiss on the road. Just before we had arrived there, it appeared that an accident had taken place.His private security personnel were following him in another car. Chiranjeevi had noticed an accident in which a person had got hurt and was bleeding. It was not clear how the accident took place but he saw that the man fallen on the road was bleeding. On his instructions, his security personnel shifted him to a hospital and also helped him financially. His family was also informed about what had happened to him so that they could come and take care of him. 

On another day, I was travelling with him in his car from his house to Ramoji Film City. Somewhere along the way, he kept looking out of the car window. I had not noticed anything that required so much of attention. I remained quiet until he decided to take our conversation forward. “Aren’t the flowers beautiful?” he asked me. The trees in the road median were in full bloom and they had caught his attention. I take that road everyday but never did I give a second glance to those trees. He noticed the trees and the flowers and loved the beauty of it. “He’s been to many beautiful places in the world and would have seen much more to appreciate. How would these few trees have caught his attention?” I wondered. But that opened my eyes. There is so much of beauty in front of us but do not quite take the time to appreciate it. 

There was already speculation at that point of time about his possible entry into politics. “Will you join politics?” I asked him. “What do you think of the idea?” he asked.