How do I type the Telugu character అ?

I am trying to type the telugu character అ on mac, after switching to the Telugu - QWERTY keyboard that ships with mac.

I would think this would show up as an option when holding down the 'a' key, or holding down shift+'a', but only the character ఆ shows up as an option. Is there an easy way to type this character?

Just pressing optiona works for me as it produces అ (TELUGU LETTER A Unicode: U+0C05, UTF-8: E0 B0 85) not ఆ (TELUGU LETTER AA Unicode: U+0C06, UTF-8: E0 B0 86) on a MBP with US Keyboard , when set to Telugu - QWERTY for the keyboard layout.

Pressing w on the same keyboard produces అ also, when set to Telugu - QWERTY for the keyboard layout.