It was indeed a 'Jalsa' of a lifetime for the fans of Megastar Chiranjeevi, brother Pawan Kalyan, Ramcharan Tej and Allu Arjun.
A glitzy affair organised in a never-seen-before fashion by Allu Sirish for his dad's production house Geeta Arts, it was telecast simultaneously on all popular telugu channels.
The evening started off with performances by dance groups for the film's songs. This was carried forward by Ali and Sunil with their comic capers which had the stars and audience in splits. The film's music director Devisri Prasad danced to the film's title song along with Baba Sehgal, who flew in all the way from Mumbai for the event.
Then it was the turn of the Goan girl Ileana to come on to the stage to thank her co-stars and her producer, director. Dressed is a white, off-shoulder top and jeans, she was cheered all the way as she walked up to the stage to give her little speech.
Finally, it was time for the audio release and the entire 'megastar' clan to come over to do the honours. As the Aditya music honcho Umesh Gupta brought over the box, Chiranjeevi gave away the first cassette to son Ramcharan. Next, he gave away the CDs to all those present on the stage.
Barring the Chiru family, there was director Trivikram Srinivas, Srinu Vaitla, 'Dil' Raju, Bramhanandam, producer Allu Aravind, actor Navdeep, one of the heroine's Parvati Melton, among those present.
First it was the turn of Allu Arjun to speak a few words. He started off by telling how he couldn't speak in front of uncle Kalyan and added that Devisri Prasad's music rocked. Director Trivikram hoped the film would do exceptionally well and thanked his music director for the peppy album.
A bespectacled Ramcharan too spoke of how much he enjoyed the music. Though Ileana was not to be seen on the stage at this time, Parvati Melton made up for it, by looking stunning in a little black number. Finally, it was the turn of her co-star Pawan Kalyan to thank his director and music director. He recounted his meeting with Trivikram and how a small incident triggered off the idea to make 'Jalsa'.
The perfect return gift for the 'Mega' fans came when Chiranjeevi himself took over the megaphone. For starters, he jovially chided Allu Aravind for never organising such a huge audio release function for films. He called Allu Sirish over to congratulate him for putting together such a mind-blowing show.
Chiranjeevi felt the extravagant film would be one of the biggest films of his brother's career. Though they had asked for a big hit like Khushi, he confessed Trivikram came up with something much larger and richer than any of the films Pawan Kalyan had done.
However, despite fans asking him about his next film and his forays into politics, Chiru preferred to skirt the question and instead chose to keep them guessing.
The event ended with Chiru posing for photographs with family before waving his final goodbye to his fans.
