Liger was an embarassment for all , the perpetrators and the spectactors like. A very close friend of the director Puri Jagannath told me, “When he showed me the film I was aghast. ‘Where is the climax? Where is the fight between Vijay and Mike Tyson?’. Puri told me Tyson didn’t want to fight. So they scrapped the climax. Everyone associated with the film knew it was going to be a disaster. Karan Johar who was a co-producer said he couldn’t connect with the film’s sensibility when he first saw it.”
The film’s failure affected Vijay profoundly. He overnight severed all relations with Puri and withdrew into a shell.
It is time for Vijay Deverakonda to move on.
When I saw Vijay Deverakonda in the Telugu film Arjun Reddy I knew I was looking at a very special actor. Vijay was fresh original and angry. He was a rebel .I don’t know about the cause. But there was definitely a lot of applause, and the brickbats too. A noisy section of the audience found Arjun Reddy misogynistic and toxic, which he was; when did Vijay deny it?!
“But isn’t cinema supposed to show us the mirror of social reality, and doesn’t the mirror also show us the ugly side of life? As an actor who likes challenges I’d like to explore the dark side of human behaviour,” Vijay argued angrily.
Arjun Reddy exhausted Vijay.He had to be constantly probing into the darkest areas of his consciousness, digging out feelings and tapping into emotions he had never touched within himself. Unlike Arjun,Vijay is not demonstrative about his feelings. In fact, Arjun has kept it all locked up within myself all his life. That’s why Arjun Reddy was very hard for Vijay. The character was constantly deep-diving into grey and dark areas of his subconscious. Left to himself Vijay would have never gone there.
Arjun Reddy was shades darker than anything we had seen in Indian cinema. It shook not only Telugu cinema, it also made Bollywood a little insecure about the future of screen heroism.
Looking back Vijay admits Arjun was a scumbag who treated his loved ones with scant respect. “And he needed to slapped hard. Arjun was not a role model, who said he was? I didn’t! We knew we were doing something never done before, at least not in Telugu cinema. We were sure we’d make some kind of an impact. It went much further than we expected.”
After Arjun Reddy,Vijay politely refused to do the Hindi remake. He had done that, been there. Vijay wanted to explore other characters, play people who are less socially unacceptable than Arjun Reddy.
When I saw Vijay in Dear Comrade I thought he was still very angry; this time about sexual harassment of women at the work place.
“And why just women, men get bullied and harassed too. Almost all my female friends have at one time or the other been pinched, groped or at least touched inappropriately. This makes me very very angry. Why can’t we create a healthy friendly comfortable work-atmosphere for women and yes,men too?” Vijay raised a pertinent point.
Here was actor who wasn’t in this for the money and fame alone. Vijay wanted to make a difference.His fan following was swelling in waves during hightide. Girls swooned over him. The guys wanted to dress like him. And the kids loved him the most. Vijay’s fans are called ‘rowdies’ affectionately. He loves them , gifts them with tokens of his appreciation.
I remember for one birthday Vijay was on the streets distributing free ice cream to underprivileged kids. Whatever he did made news. Through the superstardom that hit him with meteoric celerity Vijay remained unchanged; at least he was and he still remains the same with me. Unlike some actor who change every Friday, this guy is rock-solid in his allegiances and belief.
In 2018 when he had three releases I asked Vijay if that was not one too many. He told me it was okay to not have releases when they were not worth it. Clearly this was a success story that could not be contained in the Telugu film industry alone. It was time for Vijay to fly. And what better pilot than Karan Johar?Karan saw Vijay in Dear Comrade. He bought the Hindi rights of the film. And planned to launch Vijay as the biggest star since Shah Rukh Khan.But Vijay preferred something original in Hindi. That’s how Liger was born.
It is dead and gone. Time to move on.