Hyderabad road rage: It's time Ram Charan Teja got a dose of reality

There is an important lesson for Hyderabad motorists if what happened on Sunday is anything to go by. The next time any vehicle - not just an ambulance - is honking behind you in traffic, give way. Because if you don’t, you may be at the receiving end of road rage, especially if the impatient motorist behind you thinks the right of way is more his than yours. If one goes by the story of two software professionals, actor Ram Charan Tej (son of Union minister for Tourism and actor Chiranjeevi) was so incensed at their refusal to let him overtake their vehicle that he decided to demonstrate why he was the best choice to reprise Amitabh Bachchan’s role in the remake of Zanjeer. Remember, the 1973 film was the one that made filmgoers christen AB the `angry young man’. [caption id=“attachment_770043” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Image from CNN-IBN[/caption] According to their version of events, Charan called his security guards who came in no time and bashed them up even as the Hyderabadi public watched. Subsequently, one of the professionals went to the police station but apparently acting on advice from his parents not to take on “powerful” people, decided not to pursue the matter with an FIR. Some newspaper reports have suggested that the two cars brushed against each other and it was the dent to Charan’s Aston Martin that made him fly into a rage. Charan’s version is also a bit different. It obviously projects him as the hero and accuses the duo of behaving ’erratically’, suggesting that they were in an inebriated state. He says they got into an argument with him and even knocked on his glass pane in ‘an excited state’.  He added that he called his security guys because they were persistently clicking photographs despite him nudging them away and he was worried about his wife’s security. Fair enough but that still does not quite explain his decision to ask his guards to give them the treatment. Charan’s script has far too many loopholes and its little wonder that the mainstream and social media are taking it to the cleaners. In fact, Charan has a bone to pick up with the media as well. He blames it for publishing what he calls are  “morphed pictures” and an anti-Charan version. He refutes charges of a scuffle claiming, rather imperiously, that given that his security guys are 6.4" tall, if there indeed was a fight, you would have seen blood. Dismissing the torn shirt and ruffled hair as commonplace, he thinks nothing of the raw and pathetic aggression demonstrated by his guards in the pictures. “You are only seeing the pictures. Do you know what the dialogues are?’’ he asked, in a rather filmy manner, at a press conference on Thursday evening. His well-wishers need to tell Charan that in this case, the pictures speak a thousand words. Casting himself also as the samaritan, Charan claims he did not file a police complaint because he cared for the careers of the IT professionals. Similarly, he refused to name the photographer who he claimed made phone calls to his office, allegedly to make some money with the pictures he had shot. Frankly, if he was such a kind, sympathetic soul, he perhaps would not have called his security guards and asked them to rain blows on the duo. Sometimes silence is the better part of valour, an adage that no one obviously told Charan about. He would have endeared himself to his well-wishers and admirers if he had apologised for what happened and regretted the road rage. Having interacted with Charan on a few occasions, one can say he seemed a well-behaved young man, with impeccable manners and he should have been advised not to put his foot in his mouth by blaming everyone else except himself. Charan is called the Mega Powerstar in Telugu cinema, a combination of the titles of Megastar (Chiranjeevi) and Powerstar (Pawan Kalyan, Charan’s actor uncle). Stars like Charan are seen as role models and need to be extra careful about their behaviour in public. More so in Charan’s case, when his father is also a minister and a powerful Congress politician. At a time when the public is intolerant about high-handed and brash behaviour by people in high positions, it does not behove Charan to show brawn to people who do not have the muscle power to retort in kind. Yes it is quite likely that the two men too were guilty of not behaving appropriately but that still does not justify Charan’s behaviour. Given Charan’s star and political status, there are many who want to cash in. An advocate has gone to the State Human Rights Commission while many others are demanding that a police case be filed. For starters, the license of this security agency needs to be cancelled. These guards have no business to behave like hired goons on the road. Charan needs to be given a dressing down as well, by his father, if not the police. He needs to grow beyond the make-believe world of his films, where he thinks there is no violence unless there is blood (do they still use tomato ketchup?!) sputtering out in gory fight scenes. He needs to learn to handle his stardom the cool way unless he wants to be branded the enfant terrible of Tollywood.