How five minutes of Yash's presence stole the Ramayana event in Delhi

Some stars enter a room and the room notices. Then there are those who make the room forget what it was doing. They arrive like a wave - sudden, overwhelming, impossible to ignore - shaking everything in their path before receding. And when they are gone, the room is left strangely still, as if everyone is still trying to understand what just happened. Kannada star Yash did exactly that at Namit Malhotra's Ramayana: Pratham Sankalp event in Delhi on Saturday evening.Five minutes. That was all the KGF superstar spent on stage. But sometimes, five minutes is all it takes. A room already filled with stars, filmmakers, media and guests suddenly felt like a stadium. The energy shifted. The decibel levels rose. Every eye turned in the same direction. And for those few minutes, in a room built to celebrate a film, there was only one face everyone wanted to look at.The event itself was already larger than life. Held at Delhi's Bharat Mandapam as the grand launch of Ramayana: Part 1, which will release globally in Diwali 2026, it felt less like a film promotion and more like the first chapter of a grand spectacle the world isn't prepared for. The venue was bathed in lights, flowers, music filled the air, and anticipation hung over the room. Everyone was there for an exclusive first look at the trailer. Nobody, perhaps, was prepared for the evening to be briefly taken over by one man.The evening was already brimming with star power. Ranbir Kapoor, Sai Pallavi, Vivek Oberoi, Kunal Kapoor, Rakul Preet Singh, Karan Johar, Arun Govil and several others were in attendance, while Nitesh Tiwari and the team behind the film waited for the evening to unfold. The audience was seated. The cameras were ready. Every eye seemed trained on the massive screen ahead. The room was ready for the trailer. It was not ready for Yash.Kumar Vishwas, who was hosting the evening, had just announced that the trailer would be screened once again for everyone present. The lights went out. Naturally, the audience assumed the trailer was about to begin. Then Vishwas started speaking. “Prakash hai toh andhakar hai, acchai hai toh burai hai, Ram hai toh Raavan hai.” And suddenly, the air changed.There are moments when you know something is about to happen before it actually does. The anticipation moves through a room like electricity. I dug my fingers into my colleague's lap, sitting next to me, because I knew what everyone else sitting seemed to know too.This introduction was for one man. The lights remained off. A single beam of light fell at the centre of the hall. And Yash walked in. The walk was familiar. The swagger was unmistakable. The aura was Raavan.It was the same walk we had seen in the trailer, only this time, Raavan was walking beside us. And the audience erupted. The reaction was instant.“Yash! Yash! Yash!” Chants filled the hall. Whistles and hoots followed. “Rocky Bhai!” someone shouted. “Daddy's Home!” came another cry, referring to his upcoming film Toxic.For a few minutes, the event belonged entirely to Yash.He greeted the audience with a simple "namaskara" in Kannada before trying his hand at broken Hindi and eventually switching to English. The response only grew louder. There was an ease to the way he held the room - a familiarity, perhaps, that comes from years of being loved by audiences across languages.By then, Ranbir Kapoor had stepped off the stage and was seated among the guests. The rest of the team stood to one side. And in the centre was Yash, alone. It was an arresting sight.He spoke about Ramayana, Namit Malhotra's vision and the collective dream of taking the story of Lord Rama to a global audience. He also spoke about Ranbir's commitment to the role, saying audiences would be surprised by the way the actor had surrendered himself to the part. But even as he spoke about the film's larger vision, it was impossible to look away from Yash.And then came the trailer. Goosebumps. Every single frame. But what stayed the most was how much of the trailer belonged to Raavan. Yash's Raavan is everywhere - in the shadows, in the spectacle, in the menace and in the sheer scale of the world around him. The trailer may introduce us to Ram, Sita and the larger universe of Ramayana, but the character who walks away with it is Raavan.Yash chews up every frame he is in. There is a magnetic quality to the way he inhabits the character. Even when he is not speaking, he commands attention. Even when he is sharing the frame, your eyes instinctively find him. In a trailer built around the story of Ram, it is Yash's Raavan who rules. The VFX and scale feel unlike anything Indian cinema has attempted before. But spectacle alone cannot hold your attention for long. Yash can.Perhaps that is the thing about Yash. In Kannada cinema, he has already built an aura that extends far beyond the characters he plays. From Rocky to Raavan, he has a way of turning a character into an event. He doesn't simply arrive on screen; he brings an entire energy with him. That energy was palpable at Bharat Mandapam.Five minutes on stage. That was all it took for Yash to change the mood of an entire evening. He arrived, took over the room and left behind the kind of aftershock that lingers long after the moment is over.And yet, the most intriguing part is that this is only the beginning.The Ramayana trailer premieres globally on July 24, ahead of the worldwide theatrical release of Ramayana: Part 1 during Diwali 2026. If the first glimpse is anything to go by, the film is preparing to offer scale, faith, emotion and spectacle on a level rarely attempted in Indian cinema.But somewhere in the middle of all that grandeur, one question already feels impossible to ignore: When the story is about Ram, what happens when Raavan walks into the room?At least at Bharat Mandapam, we already knew the answer.- EndsPublished On: Jul 19, 2026 13:18 IST