Six iconic Hindi film songs of Oscar winner RRR's Naatu Naatu’s Pan-Indian composer MM Keeravaani

Composer MM Keeravaani (right) and lyricist Chandrabose of RRR's Naatu Naatu who won the Oscars 2023 on March 12 for Best Original Song.

The Golden Globes 2023 Awards. The Academy Awards 2023. The Best Original Song. The rip-roaring Naatu Naatu song from SS Rajamouli’s global blockbuster RRR has won India its very first Golden Globes award and India's second Oscars award in the said category after AR Rahman's Jai Ho (Slumdog Millionaire) in 2009, though RRR didn’t win the Best Picture — Non-English Language (formerly Foreign Language). History has been made. Undeniably, an instance of India’s soft power: the power of song and dance. Just what the West prescribed. And, at long last, a much deserved global recognition for its underrated, underappreciated composer. The film’s tag line is ‘An MM Keeravani Musical’.

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Though, Naatu Naatu is more of an action sequence, the rise of the revolutionaries against the colonial masters, set to music than a song sequence, as is traditionally known, and their lies the song’s allure. First came the visual, then the beat, then the song. Keeravani has also said in interviews that the other songs from the RRR album are more emotional than Naatu Naatu. Like Rahman's Jai Ho wasn't his best composition, neither is Naatu Naatu Keeraavani's, but it's a moment to reckon. Naatu Naatu has been winning almost every award it has been nominated for. And Keeravaani won our hearts at the 95th Academy Awards on March 12 by singing his wish to be on "the top of the world" set to the Carpenters' song. Keeravaani said he grew up listening to The Carpenters.

Keeravaani's best compositions, though, are in the past. And maybe this win, will bring to light his decade-defining discography from the 1990s-2000s. His then melodies carried Carnatic influences with Western arrangement.

Pause. Rewind to the 1990s, when a whole generation of Indians were growing up listening to the film songs by a mysterious composer, who hailed from south India. His songs were sensuous, haunting. They became anthems for the young, from those head over heels or lovelorn. And in many, these assertions were made by the women. Those earworms became our caller tunes, ringtones, lullabies to hum to, salve for barren hearts. Even the unfeeling twitched.

If MM Keeravani 2.0 is the one resurrected by director-cousin SS Rajamouli with epic diptych Baahubali (The Beginning, 2015, and The Conclusion, 2017), though the two have a 20-year cinematic partnership, Keeravani 1.0 was synonymous with love songs, sweet pathos, in the decade that suddenly lost his icon, RD Burman. In the post-Pancham era, there was enough vacuum to be filled by creators of the love song. MM Kreem was one such. Pancham died the year his last film released, 1942: A Love Story (1994). The same year, the Nagarjuna-starrer Telugu film Criminal released, which was dubbed into Hindi the next year, and with that a new composer was introduced to the Hindi film world.

But the faceless composer was not a popular name like Ilaiyaraaja or AR Rahman even though his sound was equally competent, mellifluous and fresh. Who was he? Another south Indian, perhaps. They were making the melodies then. And south Indian indeed he was. But which of the four states of south India did he belong to? Even when the film songs, across languages, had an instant recall, the film credits always carried a different name. He was MM Keeravani in Telugu films, Maragathamani in Tamil and Malayalam films, and MM Kreem in Hindi films. Kreem, or the phonetic cream, struck a comic and memorable chord with younger listeners up north, those who cared to know about composers.

One part of India or one film industry had little clue about what the other parts were producing, or who the creators were. When poet-lyricist Nida Fazli (Sur) went looking for MM Kreem down south, according to a Film Companion article, he couldn’t find Kreem. And was appalled to know that the same music composer had three aliases (something inspired from author Stephen King, who had two), and remarked: "Do you think of yourself as God?"

That insularity is unthinkable today. RRR itself features Hindi-film actors (Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn). But remember, that was the pre-internet era. A Stone Age. We have come a long way. The "mystery composer", however, was Pan-Indian decades before the phrase started trending. And his mystery made the pristine, refreshing quality of the music even more pronounced to new listeners.

Here’s a walk down memory lane: six of his iconic, and our favourite, Hindi film songs from the 1990s-2000s. This is just a glimpse, there is, of course, a lot more, including musicals like Sur (2002), with Lucky Ali (Aa bhi ja). The Oscars win, hopefully, will make the country, if not the world, revisit the love-song composer who came to be celebrated now as an action-song composer:

Tu Mile Dil Khile, Criminal, 1995

Original: Telusa Manasa, Criminal, Telugu, 1994

As much as many of us love the Nagarjuna-Manisha Koirala-starrer Tu Mile, sung by Kumar Sanu, one gripe would be why wasn’t the Hindi version, too, sung by SP Balasubramaniam? He sang the Telugu original, and his voice was known to have lifted many Hindi songs by then to ethereal heights (e.g: Aate Jaate from Maine Pyar Kiya, 1989).

Chup Tum Raho, Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin, 1996

Original Hindi composition

This song was an unusual one for Keeravani’s idiom. Low-key, with a lot of thairaav and pauses, for the rest of Sudhir Mishra's gang-feud thriller film (precursor to Ram Gopal Varma's Satya and Company) was a gritty, dark chase. The song, sung by KS Chithra and Keeravani himself, came as a soulful breather, and became bigger than the film, with an afterlife. That the haters and disruptors are capable of love. All those out there hating on each other, please take note.

Gali Mein Aaj Chaand Nikla, Zakhm, 1998

Original Hindi composition

Mahesh Bhatt’s films are stories of the women in his life. The Pooja Bhatt-Nagarjuna-starrer Zakhm was his mother’s tale. And this song, as he explained to the composer, was to reflect that when his father returned home late, it felt like the moon was finally up in the night sky, lighting up their dark alley, and their dimmed lives.

Awarapan Banjarapan, Jism, 2003

Original Hindi composition

The entire album of Jism is a keepsake. From a fairly new, brilliant young singer Shreya Ghoshal’s Chalo tumko lekar chalein and Jaadu hai nasha hai, who made lusting sound innocent and pure, to the pain of a kind of vagabondism in romantic relationships set to unique musical beats, minimal words and locutionary calisthenics, in Awarapan Banjarapan by KK, who died last year, leaving a gaping hole in the music industry. The song helped the young vocalise the angst of modern love at the turn of the millennium.

Dheere jalna, Paheli, 2005

Original: Nadiradinna, Okariki Okaru, Telugu, 2003

The central melody is the same in the two versions, but the Hindi one has been rearranged differently, more a light classical, with tabla and flute, unlike the Telugu original, which, though uses the pambai percussion, perhaps, punctuated by what sounds like electronic beats. Oh, did we mention haunting earlier? It is not just an adjective for Keeravani’s compositions, but in this Hindi film, the melody is sung by a ghost (SRK, no less!).

Maine dil se kaha, Rog, 2005

Original Hindi composition

Debilitating, haunting, heart-piercing, more pronouncedly so now because both Irrfan the actor and KK the singer are dead. But they left an anthem for all the broken hearts and out there.

Between Tu mile and Maine dil se kaha, between dil "khile" (heart bloom) and "khala" (emptiness), times had changed, so had the idea of love and the love song, leaving its creators redundant. The '90s soundtrack of Keeravani's deserves a global moment way more than the ordinary Naatu naatu.