“It was overwhelming. The beat pulsating through your body, the flying feet, the flashing eyes,” says Jenny, Akhtar/Bheem’s British friend about the blaring five minutes she witnesses in the form of Naatu Naatu (Naacho naacho) – the Telugu song-and-dance-sequence filmed on actors Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao Jr and Ram Charan in SS Rajamouli’s Telugu blockbuster RRR, that has the world, especially the west, in a thrall.
Last week, the song made it to the 95th Oscars shortlist for Best Original Song announced by the Academy and is in competition with 14 other songs that include Nothing is Lost (You give me strength) from Avatar: The Way of Water, Hold My Hand from Top Gun: Maverick, Lift Me Up from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Carolina from where the Crawdads sing and Ciao Papa from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Time from Amsterdam and My Mind & Me from Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, among others.
Last month, the track was nominated for the Golden Globe Awards and for the Critics Choice Award; and going by the western audience’s full-toned predilection for the piece since earlier this year, the song might just make the cut for the final nominations at the Oscars.
Composed by MM Kreem with lyrics by Chandrabose and choreography by the prolific Prem Rakshith, the frenzy around Naatu Naatu has built up to a crescendo at the back of a wave of Instagram and Tiktok reels from all over the world. The whole thing felt a bit unanticipated in the beginning. Amid some of the finest compositions that have come out from India in so many years, it’s Naatu Naatu that’s found warmth, joy, and some genuine love, especially from an international audience who are doing covers of it almost every day besides dancing in the aisles. Even Jai Ho, which did win an Oscar, didn’t receive this kind of attention and reception abroad. It may not seem logical, especially to Indians, who are used to song and dance sequences in Indian films and because India has produced much better music and themes in the past, that Naatu Naatu, with its very regular tune and lyrics is what’s managed to sculpture itself into a very unlikely representative of India. Amid the brilliance that is there, even from MM Kreem himself, Naati Naatu is, without a doubt, an outlandish choice.
While the situation with Naatu Naatu – the song itself, its universal appeal through a joyous vibe, a hook of a dance step that’s a rage, and all of this finding international attention, feels quite startling and stunning in the same breath, a deeper analysis leads to the idea of RRR itself – the story of the underdog rising, the poverty-striken India of the 1920s wrapped in colours, costumes, nationalism and puffy music.
The credibility and the success of the project was predicted to begin with, thanks to the use of two South superstars and the larger-than-life iconography. But what really nails it for Indians and now for even the westerners is that at the heart of it all, it is a mythological superhero film merged with the lore of Indian resistance to British imperialism. It’s a very interesting mix of fact and a lot of fiction and mythology.
In case of Naatu Naatu what has been made to work is the precursor to the song, the provocation scene in which Akhtar is called a “country oaf” by a Britisher after being thrown on the floor and causing a server to drop wine on an English girl’s dress. He adds, “These brown buggers, what do they know about art, about finesse, about dance?” It is the 1920s and it is the pre-Partition space when Britain ruled over a large part of the world. So the Brits laugh, the Indian servers look despondent while the African drummer, who is a part of a predominantly white orchestra, shakes his head, an acknowledgment of the indignity meted out to a fellow human being and a reminder of what his community had been going through for years. The whole scene rings a bell – as racism remains an issue and has found resonance around the globe again in recent years.
This is also the year of India’s 75th year of Independence from the British and the discourse for the past couple of years has revisited the atrocities, including that of the Jallianwala Bagh and conversations around the Kohinoor. Even though it feels a tad hyped up and slightly far-fetched, the situation and its projection do remind one of the times that once were. And this is where Naatu Naatu is a powerful masterstroke by Rajamouli.
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Because just when the ignominy becomes hurtful enough (this is when the Britisher bullying Akhtar brings down his shoe near Akhtar’s face), Ram begins to drum up a storm and the two get into Naatu Naatu, presenting what they call “desi naach”. From the humiliation of being called a “brown bugger” and being referred to as philistine to the determination on their faces to dance with confidence, without a care in the world, getting everyone else to participate and eventually go for a dance-off, Naatu Naatu is drama at its best. Loud and dramatic.
Naatu Naatu, the hookline, could have been just another catchy phrase paired with an infectious beat but at the heart of the matter, what has really worked is that you are being asked to dance without a care in the world — of the situation, of one’s background, or one’s story. And that thought is not only universal, it’s liberating as well.
