Rajamouli’s cocktail of folklore, fantasy and now, history
The Hindu
As RRR is poised to arrive in theatres in January 2022, a look at director S. S. Rajamouli’s romance with larger-than-life cinema steeped in graphics
‘Brace yourself for Ram, brace yourself for Bheem…’ goes a line in the trailer of director S. S. Rajamouli’s new film RRR (Rise Roar Revolt in English and Roudram Ranam Rudhiram in Telugu), scheduled to release worldwide on January 7, 2022, in multiple languages.
Inspired by The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), RRR is a fictional story exploring the possibility of revolutionaries Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem having crossed paths in the 1920s, when they were relatively unknown. What if they had been kindred spirits or friends and inspired each other, before they went on their individual journeys?
Ram or Alluri Sitarama Raju (1897 to 1924) led the Rampa Rebellion in 1922 against the British in Visakhapatnam and East Godavari and was hailed as ‘Manyam Veerudu’ (hero of the jungle). Bheem or Komaram Bheem (1901 to 1940), a rebel leader from the Gond tribes of Adilabad, led a rebellion against the Nizam of Hyderabad and the British Raj in the 1930s.