NAATU NAATU THAT WON OSCAR IS NOT SO RAW
A Telugu song is making international waves
winning Golden Globe, New York Critics and ultimately Oscar award. It was
picturized in front of Ukraine presidential palace that is in the news in
recent past only for the ugly Russian invasion. But in this movie, it looks
stunning with the creativity of Rajamouli, a director now a household name in
India for making big budget movies. Even South Koreans, Chinese and Japanese
not known for enjoyment are dancing to the hook steps of Ramcharan and NTR
choreographed by Premrakshit. Even sportsmen and ambassadors are chanting and
shouting the not so musical or classical words even without understanding the
meaning “NAATU NAATU” ( RAW RAW ) sung by Galli ( Street ) singer till recently
Rahul Sipligunj and a little known Kalabhairava , son of the music director of
this song M M Keeravani. Ultimately the 95th Academy award better
known as Oscar award was received by M M Keeravani and Chandra Bose, the
lyricist making India proud for winning this award for the first time by an
Indian language film made in India by Indians.
But my main intention is describing this song.
It is not so raw or mass song as it was made out to be or looks like if the
words are not understood. This song is the result of excellent creativity and
hard work of many days using the words of two dialects of a language mixing in
such a way to suit two historical characters belonging to two regions and backgrounds
with an imaginary friendship and written to suit the situation. These raw words
simply eclipse the so called rich and powerful Europeans at that time. It could
not have been done by any other except Chandra Bose who lives and loves to
write songs for the common man.
If I describe all the sentences, it may be
boring to the people. But I will explain some meanings to give the taste of it.
But to understand the full depth and the deeper meaning, each and every
sentence to be understood in toto. For example first sentence in the text tells
“ A bull jumping into the dusts of agricultural field “, next one “ Doing Stick
fight, the age old Indian skill for protection wearing the old footwear which
makes typical noise “ and “ Mixing Red Sorghum ( a type of millet that was
widely eaten by poor before independence ) roti with mirchi powder “
demonstrates the guts of rural India in those times in front of three piece
suit wearing Europeans proud of their heritage and culture belittling Indians treating
them as animal like.
After hearing this song I recall an eternal
Telugu Kavitha written by Mahakavi Sri Sri in his all-time great book “
Mahaprasthanam” using the words like Puppy, Match stick, Soap piece, Door
piece, aarti plate , bread piece etc. In this he tells that no word or material
is unsuitable for writing and only the creativity and emotional intelligence of
the writer matters. Similarly, another great singer Sri S P Balasubramaniam who sang
more than 50000 songs in 16 different languages and an undisputed number one
for three decades in three different languages: Telugu, Kannada and Tamil never
sang a single song without understanding the meaning and never misspelt a
single word. He was giving credit for the success of any song to the writer,
music director, singers, director, story writer only in that order and
choreographer and actors for the visual effects.
That is the importance of lyrics. Inculcate
interest in literature, lyrics, language to preserve the culture, diversity,
unity, nation, world and orderly living of mankind.
