Most actors have a story about the strangest thing a fan has ever done. For star Chiranjeevi , the story involves poison, which was mixed into a cake and brought to a film set in Madras in 1988. This was fed to the actor by a fan who believed that making Chiranjeevi consume a tantric substance would create an unbreakable bond between them.

The film was Marana Mrudangam, directed by A Kodandarami Reddy, scored by Ilaiyaraaja and based on a novel by Yandamuri Veerendranath. Chiranjeevi had been acting for a decade, had done over 100 films and was on the way to become the biggest star Telugu cinema had ever produced. He was not yet the ‘Megastar’ on screen. That title would arrive, for the first time, in the opening credits of this very film.

And the set, as was typical for a Chiranjeevi shoot in the late 1980s, was surrounded by fans who had turned up simply to watch him work. During a break in shooting, a fan approached Chiranjeevi with a cake.…