This Baahubali star has a 10,000 square feet space to experience robotics, maths, and mythology

• Rana Daggubati spoke to Business Insider about his latest venture, one that comes straight from the heart.
• Daggubati has partnered with Future Group and Amar Chitra Katha to bring about ACK Alive - a learning centre in Hyderabad.
• The centre offers 64 courses from Vedic Mathematics to Robotics.

Growing up, Amar Chitra Katha has been a part of every Indian’s life for colourful storytelling of India’s mythology. Nestled in the city of Hyderabad, is a mythological learning centre that takes one back to those memories. And at the helm of it is South Indian superstar Rana Daggubati.

Daggubati, who brought the world to his notice with his role as the villain in SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus Baahubali, has partnered with Future Group and Amar Chitra Katha to bring about Amar Chitra Katha Alive - a state-of-the-art learning centre spread over 10,000 square feet for art and design, life skills, performing arts and vedic science and ethics.

Daggubati claims it's not just another summer school. The ACK Alive centre offers over 64 courses – a modern take on Indian Gods Krishna and Balarama who studied life skills in just 64 days, he said. The courses range from simple courses like Photography, Creative Writing and Theatre to ones like Vedic Mathematics, Tarot reading and even Kalaripayattu – an Indian martial art that originated in Kerala.

“The centre offers an all age group learning. You can come at any age or any time of your convenience and pick up a program that you like,” Rana Daggubati told Business Insider.

Daggubati who has been involved in mythological movies like Baahubali, realised that there was no brand holding together all the stories that India’s mythology together like Amar Chitra Katha did. Talking about how the partnership happened, he said, “I was actually working on a different project with the Future Group and was then introduced to the idea of the Amar Chitra Katha learning centre.”

While the centre was initially supposed to be built in Mumbai, Daggubati, who is now a director at Amar Chitra Katha, brought it to Hyderabad. Why? Better real estate options, of course!

“Mumbai was the first option but we wanted to build something of scale. A centre which can have at least 250 people learning at the same time – in Mumbai it would be too expensive. Meanwhile, Hyderabad has an audience which still has great respect for ACK and still has a large readership too,” said Daggubati.

The bringing about of ACK Alive also had a personal connection with Daggubati. The centre is today built on Daggubati’s previous office space. “Converting my previous office into a learning centre was quite emotional as this is where I learnt everything I know,” he said.

At ACK Alive, Daggubati himself will be enrolling for a Vedic Mathematics course.

The curated courses have seen a great response too, with over 200 families coming over in the first few days of its launch. While there are free classes going on until April 15th, many have already registered.

Daggubati, who is busy with movies in Tollywood and Bollywood also has a media and entertainment company KWAN and is also a partner at Anthill Studios – an accelerator programme for M&E startups. But through all of his work, there’s one common theme – storytelling. “ACK is a storytelling company that holds a legacy of over 53 years now. There’s nothing that summarises Indian storytelling better than Amar Chitra Katha does,” said Daggubati.

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