3 min readHyderabadApr 8, 2026 06:38 PM IST Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, Allu Arjun stepped onto the balcony of his Jubilee Hills residence in Hyderabad to a street packed with fans who had been waiting for hours to wish him on his birthday. By morning, his new film with director Atlee had an official title, Raaka, announced to the world on his 44th birthday. The scale of the moment felt proportionate to where he stands today: one of the highest-paid actors in Indian cinema, a National Award winner, and the man whose dialogue from Pushpa found its way into casual conversation across the country. But there was a time when none of this was certain. And it started, of all places, on a film set where someone else was the star. A family film in more ways than one The year was 2001. Chiranjeevi’s film Daddy was a Telugu family drama directed by Suresh Krissna and produced by Allu Aravind under the Geetha Arts banner. Chiranjeevi played the lead: Raj Kumar, a wealthy audio …