Natu Natu – song from RRR has put an Indian movie song on World stage.  

What a great achievement - a Telugu song full of rustic rural lyrics, original tune, full of energy and rhythm has won Golden Globe award for Best original song award facing tough competition from top international stars like Lady Gaga, Rihana and Taylor Swift.  Not only the first Indian but first Asian movie song to win this honours a proud movement for Telugu and Indian film industry.

Hearty congratulations to brothers Keeravani and Rajamouli, lyricist Charabose, singers Rahul Sipliganj and Kala Bhairava.   A Special appreciation to Prem Rakshit for fantastic choreography and Ram Charan and Jr. NTR for their most energetic and synchronized dancing.   The way the song with dance has shaped up and come on the screen has helped the song to become so popular globally and stake claims at Golden globe and Oscars.   It is very common in Telugu states for frenzy audience to get up on seats, throw colour papers, currency notes and move towards the screen and dance when such song and dance sequences come on the screen.   But watching audience doing so and get on the stage and dancing to ‘Natu Natu’ number is a unique and unusual experience.   RRR broke record on Netflix by being on the top of charts for 15 weeks consecutively.   Though released in USA, UK Europe and Japan much after release by Netflix on OTT, the movie is still going very strong at box office.   The US media and critics have given very wide and positive coverage to RRR and it proved to be a real cross over movie beyond both Telugu states not only in India but all across the Globe.

Keeravani : Keeravani is one of the most talented and original Telugu music directors.   He scores music in Hindi movies with the name of Kreem and Maragatamani in Tamil. The specialty of Keeravani is that in every song each note comes out very clearly and it is never sound and fury.   His Telusamanasa/Tum mile dil khile from Criminal, Jamuratri jabilamma from Khanam Khanam, Awarapan Banjarapan from Jism, Pachabottesina from Bahubali and all songs of Anamayya and many more songs showcase his talent.    Apart from music for the songs, he is specialized in giving fantastic background score. He has taken background score to dizzy heights in movies like Maghadheera, Bahubali 1&2 and RRR and the contribution of background score is at par with the computer graphics and special effects in creating out of the world experience.   As explained by Rajamouli he goes to the heart of the emotion of the scene and start working on the background score and take lot of time and efforts in coming out with the best.

Right from Magadheera, Eega, Bahubali to RRR Rajamouli is raising the bar which no other Indian director could match.   With these movies not only Rajamouli got Telugu movies recognition all over India by grossing highest box office collections but started PAN India culture for regional movies which hitherto was the bastion of Hindi movies.   With the success of RRR and his next venture with top Telugu star Mahesh babu with a whopping budget of around Rs. 1000 crores he can surely rub shoulders with top Hollywood directors.

Rajmouli realised NTR (sr) dream:

I am very happy that today Rajamouli has realized NTR dream.    NTR at peak of his career when he was essaying wide variety of roles viz., mythological, folklore, historical, social and action movies he felt constrained by the limited market of Telugu movies in the then united Andhra Pradesh.   He   used to say that Telugu movies, actors, technicians, directors and music directors deserve so much recognition at national and international level which was not forthcoming.   Great actors like NTR, SVR, Savitri, directors like BN Reddy, Dasari, Ragavendra Rao, music directors like S Rajeswara Rao, Ramesh Naidu, gifted and divine singers like Ghantasala and P Susheela could not get the recognition they deserved even at an all-India level not to speak at international level.  

Suppression by Bollywood

There is no denying of the fact that for decades regional cinema spcially south Indian and Telugu movies have been suppressed by Bollywood and for Bollywood and I&B Ministry of Government of India cinema means Hindi cinema and nothing beyond it.    When International Indian Film Academy Awards was constituted, it was given only to Hindi movies and Hindi filmy personalities as if the regional cinema is not part of India film industry.  South India cinema has come together as set up their own award SIMA to counter that move.   For getting any recognition or awards from the Government the regional cinema personalities have to put ten times more efforts than a Hindi filmi personality.   Chiranjeevi has shared many times how humiliated he felt that at a national awards function in Delhi which he attended to receive an award for his movie `Rudra Veena, he found photos of many Hindi stars like Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar etc., put up in the hall and not even a single photo of Telugu stars NTR & ANR who acted in more than 350 and 300 movies respectively, Malayalee actor Prem Nazir who acted over 650 movies, Shijavi Ganesa and Savitri, the greatest actress of Indian cinema was put up.  

 

A cursory glance at the below mentioned film personalities from south who were denied their well-deserved recognition will expose how deep the malice is.

NTR – acted in over 350 movies over 45 years (till he left the industry on his own to enter politics) essaying such wide variety of movies like Mythological, folklore, historical, social and action movies.   Only conferred Padmashri.   If there is one film personality who deserves Bharat Ratna, its NTR

SVR – greatest character actor and villain who acted in Telugu and Tamil movies.   First Indian actor to win an international award for his role in Telugu movie Nartanasala in Jakarta International film festival.   Not even conferred Padmashri.  

Savitri – the greatest actress India has ever produced.   Highest paid Indian actress in her hay days even more than Hindi actress of those days like Nargis Meena Kr etc.  Used to have more significant roles than NTR, ANR, MGR & Shivaji.   Not even conferred Padmashri

Vijayanirmala – a Telugu actress who has acted in over 200 movies and directed a world record number of 48 movies by a female director.   Not even conferred Padmashri.

Dasari Narayana Rao – a Telugu actor, producer, director, editor, lyricist, story and screenplay writer.   He directed a world record number of over 150 movies and not even conferred Padmashri

Raghavendra Rao – extremely successful and popular director who directed over 100 movies with over 90% box office successes - Not even conferred Padmashri

K Satyanaryana: - a Telugu Character actor, villain and comedian who has acted in over 750 movies in over 65 years of film career and not even conferred Padmashri

And the list goes on ……………

It is even difficult to imagine any Hindi actor, actress, director or producer with such longevity in the highly competitive cine fields with such trail blazing career in terms and quantity and quality and popularity.    Compared to the above, extremely ordinary performers with pedestrian credentials (acted hardly in less than 25 to 50 run of the mill movies) in a span of 10 to 15 years in Hindi film industry were given Padma awards and Dadasaheb Pakle award.  Sail Ali Khan, Kangana, Asha Parekh, Vidya Balan are few of the many examples.  

Overcoming adversary

But the Telugu and south Indian industry has never bogged down by the cold shouldering by the Bollywood and kept on its good work and keep raising the bar.   Thanks to Pandemic, the Indians have discovered the worth, talent and range of South Indian movies and got into habit of watching a quality and entertaining movie whichever language it may be coming from.  This has thoroughly exposed the Bollywood mediocracy and in the last 4-5 years it is feeling the heat from regional movies and completely lost its ground and market.  Hindi producers and actors are scared to release their movie around release of a south India top star movie as many south Indian movies made much higher box office collections in the Hindi heart land than Hindi movies. Top producers like Karan Johar are too happy distributing South India movies like Robo and Bahubali.  A look at 2022 box collections will show how south Indian movies have left Hindi movies far behind.

KGF-2      - 1275 crores

RRR         - 1272 crores

Vikram   -    480 crires

Kantara   -  400 crores

Pushpa 2 – 380 crores

Today Telugu and South Indian movies do not crave for any recognition from Bollywood the world is its stage.   Actors like Prabhas, Allu Arjun, Jr NTR, Ram Charan, Mahesh Babu are most sought-after actors and command anything around Rs. 80 to 100 crores per movie, producers queue up before directors like Raja Mouli and Shankar.   With PAN India market and good share from overseas market, the budget of Telugu and Tamil movies are going through the roof and every movie with a top star is planned at not less than 400 to 500 crores with confidence to mop up around Rs. 800 crores.   Moreover, unlike Bollywood for the financing of the movie they need to bank on sources across the border who control every aspect of film making.  The big size landlords and businessmen pump in large amounts into film production in Telugu industry and hence producers and director have freedom to make movies as per their conviction.    Earlier small time heroins and villains from Hindi cinema used to run after south Indian directors and now all top Bollywood actors are looking to get into one frame with Rajamouli and Shankar how so ever small the role may be.  OTTs are bombarded by South Indian movies and are the first choice of movie buff and the going is never so good for South Indian industry.  But other regional cinema viz., Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Assamee and Bhojpuri could not lift themselves and progress the way South India industry has done.   

It’s a shame that RRR was not shortlisted by Indian Government for Oscars but you find the I&B Minister thumping chest on RRR song winning Golden Globe.   Thanks to the efforts made by the producers, Rajamouli and leading actors who camped in US and gave a push and great momentum and made sure that it figures in eligibility list of Oscars in few categories.    Winning of Golden Globe award augurs well for RRR and gaining nomination and win Oscars.   Winning Oscars will be icing on the cake.     I wish good luck for the RRR team.

Hope it works as a wake-up alarm to the Government and Bollywood and they start treating all movies of all language equally

S. Prabhakar

12.1.23