Nandamuri Balakrishna was seen smoking one too many times in 'Veera Simha Reddy'. In today's release 'Waltair Veerayya', Megastar Chiranjeevi makes an entry with a dashing bidi between his lips. It is raining heavily but never mind. The real thoofan is the one who is smoking with swag!

Directors Gopichand Malineni and Bobby Kolli seem to have felt that making their heroes smoke glamorously was the easiest way to mass-ify them. For many years, smoking scenes by heroes took a backseat. When 'Okkadu' was re-released recently, Netizens went gaga sharing stills of Mahesh Babu smoking. They almost asked, "Where is this old Mahesh?" In 'Kushi', Pawan Kalyan's character said that he can't live without smoking.

For many years, almost all big stars avoided smoking scenes. But this Sankranthi's two big releases have undoubtedly glamourized smoking.

Blogger and columnist Kartik Dayanand says that the new trend has been influenced by Vijay Deverakonda's 'Arjun Reddy'. "I notice all the film heroes smoking on screen these days, just like in the 80s, including Balakrishna and Chiranjeevi. Wasn't the case till recently. Accept it or not, this change happened only because of Arjun Reddy's success," he tweets.

What do you think influenced Balayya and Chiru's films to portray smoking scenes?