Team Baahubali takes media for a royal ride

In what is a clear case of favouritism, the team of SS Rajamouli’s ‘Baahubali’ has chosen only select print media houses to grant interviews of their stars, ignoring the credentials of nearly a dozen media houses.

The promotional campaign of the Telugu version, as part of the run-up to the multi-crore project, began more than a fortnight ago with Rajamouli’s interviews. To begin with, only four vernacular dailies were invited to interact with the filmmaker.

Also, the interviews of the film’s lead actors – Prabhas, Rana Daggubati and Tamannaah – were given to the same media houses with a couple of English dailies added to the ‘exclusive elite’ list. This selective preference of team ‘Baahubali’ is baffling considering that almost every newspaper has given wide coverage from the time the magnum opus went on floors.

If the media personnel are fuming at this bias they have every reason because this sort of treatment was not meted out in recent times. Also, it seems that the makers were so busy promoting the film around the northern belts that they overlooked the backyard (under the mistaken notion that the locals will anyway make it to the theatres).

Despite being omitted from the ‘chosen’ category, some of the media houses sought an appointment with Prabhas and his co-stars (before their scheduled interviews), only to get a royal snub.

However, on Tuesday when the makers convened a presser to highlight the measures being put in place to curb piracy in Hyderabad, every media house was invited, which was tantamount to making a mockery of the term. When the neglected ‘less privileged’ media (including this correspondent) confronted Rajamouli over this highhandedness, he passed on the buck to producer Shobu Yarlagadda.

“We are scheduling interviews to everyone in a phased manner,” Shobu said before quickly rushing away, much to the chagrin of the waiting journalists. However, one is left to wonder whether Wednesday was yet another day, because there has been no intimation about any scheduled audience with the actors.