Varanasi unveils Rudhra: Mahesh Babu in the Maasai Mara

Team Varanasi marked Mahesh Babu’s birthday by showing the world Rudhra for the first time: two stills from SS Rajamouli’s epic, both from the film’s Africa schedule.

The first has Rudhra stretched out on a bamboo raft in dense jungle, unhurried and entirely at home. The second puts him on the plains of Kenya’s Maasai Mara, giraffes and wildebeest scattered behind him, looking back over his shoulder with the kind of ease that reads as command.

Rajamouli’s note on the character is more revealing than most first-look copy. “Rudhra was born to fulfil a purpose much larger than himself. He carries a destiny he did not ask for. He is witty, he is vulnerable, and he is fierce. That is what Mahesh brought to him. Anyone can play fierce. Very few can play fierce and fragile in the same breath.”

The frames come from shoots around Kilimanjaro and in the Maasai Mara, and Rajamouli says the locations gave the film something no set could. “There were mornings when I felt even the 1.43:1 IMAX frame could not hold what was in front of us.”

The film is pitched as a globe-trotting, century-spanning epic, one man’s journey from India’s sacred waters to the wildest corners of the earth. MM Keeravani composes, and Sri Durga Arts and Showing Business produce. Varanasi releases worldwide in IMAX on April 7, 2027, which gives Rajamouli about twenty months to make good on those mornings.