Chiru excited about TV innings

Megastar Chiranjeevi launched the logo of Star MAA, the regional channel by Star India at the Park Hyatt hotel in Banjara Hills on Sunday. He also announced the ‘Meelo Evaru Koteeshwarudu’ (MEK) proceedings for the season on the occasion.

The first episode of MEK will start at 9.30pm on the channel on Monday. For the first time, Chiranjeevi is hosting the show. The previous seasons were hosted by Akkineni Nagarjuna.

Speaking about the much-awaited show ‘MEK’, Chiranjeevi said, “It was a new experience for me. I never hosted a show before and MEK is my first in television. Through this show, I can meet different people like auto drivers, bankers, employees and intelligent people.”

“MEK is an emotional journey for me. It is not a game; it’s like playing with emotions. It has the laugh, pain, emotions and everything. I’m happy to be interacting with people with the show,” he said.

Commenting about the change of the host, Chiranjeevi shared, “I hesitated when I was approached for hosting the MEK-2017 season. I told the organisers that Nagarjuna is doing well.

But they said that they are launching MAA TV in a new way after its merger with Star India and that is the reason why they wanted to change the host.”

“When I spoke about this issue with Nagarjuna, he said that I must do the show. Nagarjuna also supported me,” smiled Chiru and added, “Nagarjuna and Venkatesh will participate in the show.”

He said that the current stalemate in Andhra Pradesh politics provided him some time to act in movies and television shows. He also indicated that he may accept television shows if they have good content.

On the sidelines of the event, he said, “This year is going to be memorable for me. My movie ‘Khaidi No 150’ released after 10 years.

When I started working on my 150th movie I was worried about how the audience would receive me after the long gap. But they accepted me very well. They showed love towards me and I never forgot it.”

Kevin Vaz, CEO, South Region, Star India and Alok Jain, Business Head of MAA were also present at the event.