`NATU NATU NAILS IT’ – BAGS FIRST OSCAR FOR BEST ORIGINAL SONG

Today is an historic day for Telugu/Indian cinema, `Natu Natu’ song from RRR becomes the first Indian movie to wins Oscar for `Best original song’.   It’s a `double dhamaka’ for India as `Elephant Whispers’ has won Oscar for best documentary short movie.   Its is a cute movie on relationship between orphan elephant and the kind-hearted who bring them up.  

What worked for Natu Natu

Unlike movies of the rest of the world specially Hollywood, songs and dances are the integral and most attractive part of Indian cinema taking the story telling forward.   With most of the top Telugu stars being good dancers lot of importance is given to songs and are mounted lavishly bettering movie after movie.    The following factors have come together in right proportion to make Natu Natu such a sensation hit and a raze:

i.                     The original and rustic lyrics by Chandra Bose

ii.                   The original and native music by Keeravani.  

iii.                 The energetic singing by young and new singers Kaala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj

iv.                 Fantastic choreography by Prem Rakshith

v.                   Sensational, synchronised and most energetic dancing by Jr. NTR and Ram Charan who looked like mirror image of each other.

vi.                 The importance of the song in the movie, in a way the win over colonial swollen heads and Komaram Bheem with the help of his friend winning the heart of Jenny

vii.                DVV Danayya, the producer of the movie, who liberally opened his cash chest for Rajamouli and giving him complete freedom  

viii.              Kartikeya pushing the idea of the song and Rajmouli conceiving the song the way it came on the screen.  Like in all aspect of his film making, he extracted the best out of his team of Choreographer, actors and not letting anyone go till they delivered what he has in mind.   It was reported that he took some 60 retakes till he got perfect synchronisation by both top stars Jr. NTR and Ram Charan which was really difficult task considering that both the actors had their own different styles of dancing with huge fan base.

The Originality:

Many times we find songs being copied/inspired/adopted from some other song/source whether Indian or Western, classical or hip hop.  But the best part of `Natu Natu’ is that both the lyrics and the music are absolutely original and rooted in Indianness .  Since the heros were to give back the brant Britishers for the insult in trying to throw them out, they had to present an absolute Indian original song with Indian beats.   Chandra Bose and Keeravani have succeeded in doing so.  Few of the words used in the song. 

Natu – Naitivity

Pollamgattu Dummulona – Dust of the fields

Potlagitta – Raging Bull

Poleramma Jataralo -  the village fare of `Poleramma’

Kirruseppu – village foot ware which makes creaking sound 

Karrasamu – Stick fight

Errajonna rotte – Bread made of maize

 

The entire song goes on in the same lines.   These rustic and earthy lyrics was supported by fantastic music which starts slowly and builds up tempo to final climax without using any western or modern beats.  

The long journey to Oscars

It may not be a walk in the park for Natu Natu but the huge hype created for the last 3 months or so specially in US made things easy for it.    The rousing reception the song got in US theatres with people dancing on the stage in theatres as has been done in single screen theatres in Telugu States, the song winning Golden Globe award and many more American Critics’ Awards all worked in its favour.   Even when the song was announced and performed by the singers and US dancers at the awards function it got a standing ovation which is not so common.

The Royal Snub by I&B Ministry

The passage of Natu Natu to Oscar was anything but smooth and almost a nonstarter.  At the cost of being blamed for triggering regional divide, as always happens I&B Ministry didn’t have a real hard look at the southern movies when it comes to Padma Award or sending it to Oscars.    Despite stupendous success neither Bahubali nor RRR were sent to Oscars as official entries in any category.    Both movies deserved to be the official Indian entry in the categories for Best movie, Best Director, Best visual effects beside Best Original Song for Natu Natu in RRR.   The I&B Ministry has given a royal snub to RRR.  But once the Oscar is won everyone including I&B Minister and PM is jumping into congratulate the RRR to make India proud which their Ministry almost denied.   They should first bother to check what is wrong with I&B Ministry.  

Anyone in the position of Rajamouli would have felt disappointed and let it go.   But the team of Rajaouli and his talented son Kartikeeya who was the line producer of RRR did not get disheartened and started to work their way to Oscars.   First, they applied in `for your consideration in general category’ Then they organised the screening of RRR in Oscar approved theatres and simultaneously created the right kind of buzz through TV chat shows in various American Channels and interacting with audience in theatres by the Director Rajamouli, two leading stars Jr NTR and Ram Charan who camped for a long time in US despite their busy schedules.  They spent huge amount of time, efforts and money to promote not only their movie and song but brand India.   

As a prelude to Oscars Natu Natu which faced the toughest competition from top stars like lady Gaga has created history by winning Golden Globe Award for Best Original song.    This has made the RRR team feel that they are in with a very good chance to win Oscar and then came the good news of its being nominated for Oscars.   Thus Natu Natu has become the first Indian entry to make it to nomination stage coming through `for your consideration general category’ and ultimately won the Oscar, - first in the 80 years history of Telugu film industry.   In a way it is a tight slap on the face of Committee of Duds appointed by I&B Ministry who did everything to ensure that India would not have got Oscars.

M M Keeravani : It is ultimate glory to the highly talented and sober Telugu music director MM Keeravani.   Though he is not as prolific as other leading music directors in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi in which he scores music with different names `Marakathamani’ and `MM Kreem’, his music has always been unique, special and original.   Besides tunes for the songs, his Background Music has always been outstanding.    It is taken to dizzy heights first in Bahabali I & II and then RRR.   Many of the larger than life scenes of Bahubali were brought to life by the fabulous back ground score of  Keeravani,    I always had the feeling that it is music directors like Keeravani and Illayaraja (another hugely talented music director and my all-time favourite) who could bring international laurels to India.

Rajamouli’s Magic

Anything said in the praise of Rajamouli becomes repetitive but in this moment of glory I cannot help but salute this unparallel talent called Rajamouli.    First he broke industrial records in Telugu taking movies to such massive and unbelievable heights movie after movie starting from Magadheera.   His spending large time with his father on building the story, conceiving each and every frame, constructing massive sets, extensive use of special effects and spending highly disproportionate time on postproduction to bring out a product never seen before in India cinema.    The Telugu market being small (not more than Rs. 100 crores at the max during pre-Bahubali era) he set his eyes on an unprecedented PAN India release of Telugu movie and had producers backing and came out with historic and record breaking Bahubali franchise.    While Bahubali became a sensational PAN India blockbuster, with RRR he built a Global brand and market for Telugu/Indian movies.   Apart from winning many critics’ awards as director of RRR, he got special praise from top Hollywood big wigs including Spielberg and Cameron who indicated their interest to collaborate with him.    Now any movie which he makes hereafter will not only be a PAN India movie but a global movie.    He has already announced his next venture with Telugu heart throb Mahesh Babu, a jungle action adventure which suits international audience.    With that I am sure that Rajamouli is going to do another first – The First Telugu/Indian Global movie.  

Till then let us celebrate the success of Natu Natu and keep grooving to the wonderful tune while I&B Ministry figures out why their team could not see what the world could see and appreciate so generously. 

A Big Thanks to Keeravani and Rajamouli for not only producing such a sensational song Natu Natu but for all the special efforts made in promoting the song and brand India .   

 

S. Prabhakar

13.3.2023