What Pushpa’s Patna Premiere Reveals About Bihar

While the trailer of Pushpa 2: The Rule was being launched from Gandhi Maidan in Patna, someone forwarded me an article describing Bihar daughters’ rise in the field of coding.

As someone born and brought up in Bihar, both of these developments sounded contrary to me. Bihar has largely treated running after film stars as a low-grade trait, while coding is always considered a high-grade quality.

While the craze for the latter does not need any explanation, people flocking to watch Allu Arjun despite the prevalent social stigma does—especially since he belongs to a place believed to be disrespectful to the average Bihari.

The South Indian superstar launching his movie trailer in Patna has a wonderful backstory.

Its roots can be traced back to the 2007–2011 phase of Bihar’s developmental trajectory. Inspired by newly built roads, relatively stable electricity, and pro-business sentiment, cable TV wires moved from Patna and key locations of other cities to small towns and villages.

Suddenly the audience, which was treated with barely three movies—often repetitive without much change in theme—on weekends (DD Metro and DD National), got to know that there is a rich cinematic world beyond Bollywood and Bhojpuri.

This world was dubbed South Indian movies. When cable TV started to broadcast them, Hindi cinema was busy setting unrealistic high moral and financial standards for the growing middle class, while the Bhojpuri industry was just not able to come out of sleazy and deracinated representations of India’s family value system.

The Allure of the South

Dubbed South Indian movies came with only a slight but important change from the prevailing narrative. For instance, the audience, fed with the idealism of Suryavansham, was told that even without looking poor, a young man could succeed and respect his family values.

Compare that with Shahid Kapoor’s character in Badmaash Company, who just ran through his father’s moral standards. Many other Hindi films had similar themes—which somehow did not appeal to the masses—even the middle class.

South Indian cinema stepped into this void. Movies like Magadheera, Sivaji: The Boss, and Ghilli offered a mix of grandeur and familiarity. Their narratives—reminiscent of Suryavansham and Mithun Chakraborty’s classic underdog tales—struck a chord.

Themes of familial ties, underdog victories, and strong cultural values offered an alternative to Bollywood’s growing indulgence in urban escapism and strained relationship tropes.

Among middle-class Biharis, the craze for South Indian movies first gained traction in the 25+ age group, and it quickly engulfed people relying on daily wages for their bread and butter.

Their routine was fixed—work throughout the day, then go to a cyber cafe or another professional and ask them to fill their memory (in those days, separate memory cards were common) with movies—mainly South Indian—and sleep while watching them.

Critics and non-watchers laughed at unrealistic action sequences and larger-than-life figures, but as a film critic rightly said (about Salman Khan though), this is what they want at the end of the day.

The movie download business continued until the Jio 4G revolution arrived. Audiences suddenly had infinite options now—pirated websites, Telegram, YouTube, and much more. In terms of options, the Hindi industry was also now coming to terms with reality.

Gangs of Wasseypur opened avenues for more realistic and relatable Hindi movies for the masses. On the other hand, South Indian—especially Tamil—movie makers were rooting more for culture and showcasing it.

The Baahubali series, which debuted in 2015, marked a transformative moment for Indian cinema. Its exceptional production values, compelling narrative, and wide-reaching appeal set new standards that Bollywood found challenging to rival.

Subsequent blockbusters like Pushpa, RRR, Kantara, and KGF among others followed this trajectory, solidifying the dominance of South Indian films among both regional and Hindi-speaking audiences.

Statistically speaking, according to data released by Box Office India, among the top 10 net grosses in Bihar, three are South Indian movies—namely KGF Chapter 2, Baahubali: The Conclusion, and RRR. Kabir Singh, ranked number 10th in the list, is a remake of the 2017 Telugu film Arjun Reddy.

The Power of Pushpa

Though Pushpa: The Rise is ranked at number 58 on the Box Office India list, a News18 report confirms that Bihar gave it the highest return. The credit for that goes to Goldmine Telefilms, which broadcasts Hindi and Bhojpuri dubbed versions of South Indian movies through its popular satellite channel Dhinchak TV.

The latest publicly available data indicate that dubbed movies featuring Allu Arjun have been seen more than 1.5 billion times, only on its YouTube channel. Even in the Hindi television market of South Indian actors, Allu Arjun currently holds the numero uno position among South Indian stars—leaving his close competitor Prabhas behind.

Amidst such fan following came a dream story of a poor labourer becoming a red sandalwood king; the relativity quotient for the audience was high. Add to that shrieking of arms around the neck and dialogues like “Pushpa naam sunke flower samjha kya, fire hoon main” and “Jhukega nahi saala.”

These are the serotonin boosts people aspire to have, and Pushpa had that.

People were so enamoured with the character that the famous Srivalli song was also remade in Bhojpuri, and became a major hit on its own.

Its business in Bihar played to the phenomenon of a widening base with a relatively cheaper price. Even though multiplex-going Bihar audiences also loved it, its success was more evidenced in single-screen bookings going from 1,401 to 1,600 in Bihar itself. Pushpa became a mass hit in both theatres and television.

Part of the credit also goes to the rise of disposable income in Bihar—which somehow does not get reflected accurately in official data. According to the data-churning website Statista, between the financial years 2012 and 2024, the state’s per capita income increased from Rs 21,750 to Rs 60,340.

Among districts, Patna, Muzaffarpur, Begusarai, Darbhanga, Gaya, and Purnia are some of the faster-developing ones.

However, travel to and inside Bihar tells us that there has been a remarkable change in the pattern of spending. People who could not afford to buy tickets are now easily booking sleeper-class trains. Similarly, sleeper-class travellers are preferring 3rd AC and so on.

Such incremental changes, along with the opening of big malls, and eateries clearly indicate that a market for leisure activities is up and running, but it requires thrust in the form of cultural change.

Pushpa franchise owners understand it very well. To move the audience in Bihar, an emotional and exclusive touch was needed.

But filmmakers also had two options—Lucknow and Patna. Both locations would be fine for the Eastern distribution circuit of Hindi movies, comprising Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, the rest of the Northeast states, Bhutan, and Nepal.

The problem with Lucknow was that it would be one of many options for Uttar Pradesh. In contrast, Patna would be the only choice for Bihar.

For social media buzz, a unique initiative is required. Movie makers understand that there is a hunger among social media admins of pro-Bihari pages to shed the negative image associated with Bihar.

It is one of the unique ecosystems created organically and consists of meme page admins to aspiring entrepreneurs—they all share, retweet, and quote retweet anything positively related to Bihar.

Then there is that group of non-Biharis that keeps hunting for anything negative associated with Bihar, just like foreigners keep hunting for anything negative about India. With Lucknow, that option would not be present.

For them, the treatment received by Allu Arjun became an opportunity to highlight Bihar’s unemployment problem. Both sides got into a debate, and Pushpa 2: The Rule became the ultimate winner. Any publicity is good publicity in the ‘cine-world.’

Allu Arjun said that he bows down to Biharis’ love towards him and apologised for not speaking Hindi in full flow. The audience had no issue with it.

One of my marketing friends said that it is a form of manipulative marketing. He may be right, but those three-lakh people gathered to get a glimpse of Allu Arjun do not think so.

Neither do the people going to watch his movie in 450 single-screen theatres.