‘Nuvve Na Swasa’ from Okariki Okaru movie, composed by M.M.Keeravani, written by Chandra Bose and sung by Shreya Ghoshal. This song is one of my all-time favorite melody songs. I can’t pinpoint one reason why but it is a combination of Shreya Ghoshal’s singing, M.M.Keeravani’s composition and the soothing lyrics written by Chandrabose. This is good example how a song will be at its perfect best when everything falls into the right place. Okariki Okaru movie was dubbed from Tamil with no high expectations and later this Telugu movie turned out to be one of the super hits of 2003.

Keeravani under the name Maragatha Mani has composed the songs in Tamil and the same songs were re-done for Telugu movie as well. The Tamil version of 'Nuvve Na Swasa' was sung by Mahathi and 'Vellipothe Ela' Tamil version was sung by Keeravani and Shreya Ghoshal. Keeravani seems to have been pretty impressed by Shreya Ghoshal’s singing in both the Tamil song & the Hindi song from Jism ‘Jaadu hai naasha hai’ song and later Shreya Ghoshal was specially called for Nuvve Na Swasa and Nadir Dhinna songs in this Telugu movie. This was recorded in the early stages of Shreyal Ghoshal’s career where she was a budding singer in film industry and Nuvve Na Swasa has given her a great start in Telugu industry.

This song starts off with a beautiful music followed by the fresh melodious voice of Shreya Ghoshal. Nuvve Na Swasa was composed in ‘Chitta Ranjani’ Raagam and it is very rare to use this raagam in any song compositions. The very first line tune was inspired from a Carnatic Tyagaraja kriti ‘Nada Tanumanisham’ in Chitta Ranjani raagam and the rest of the song was composed by Keeravani in the same raagam. I love the way the instruments programming was done for this song. Especially, the back ground music played in between the vocals stand out. As per the song situation, it should have an in depth pain in the song but at the same time, it should not sound like a full pathos song. Keeravani might have taken this song situation as a challenge and used different kind of modern westernized instruments to come up with this song tune. This song tune was also used as back ground music to elevate certain scenes in the movie.

Similarly, I should completely appreciate the way Shreya Ghoshal rendered this song. It is not that easy to get the diction of an unknown language right and at the same time, maintain the perfect feel of the song. Shreya Ghoshal has done her best in this song. I especially like how she has carried out the pain of missing someone through her singing in the entire song especially in the below lines in first stanza -

Puvvullo parimalaanni parichayame chesaavu
taarallo merupullanni dosililo nimpaavu
Mabbullo chinukulanni manasulona kuripinchaavu
Navvullo navalokaanni naa munde nilipinaavuga

For all you Shreya Ghoshal fans, this is a musical bonanza given by your lovable singer.
I should definitely mention about the lyricist Chandra Bose. As I always say, writing lyrics for dubbing songs is tough and it is even harder to write lyrics for this type of situational dubbing songs. Chandra Bose has done a solid job in writing lyrics for this song. He has made it easy for singers to show the right feel in the song, without complicating the words.

I can imagine the Telugu music industry listening to this song once it was released, and commenting ‘this song is indeed a fresh breath of air to the South Indian filmy music, especially melodious tunes’. This song will remain synonymous with Shreya Ghoshal in Telugu and it is another feature in the cap of Keeravani’s melodious songs. An evergreen soulful song, indeed!

-Lasya

  Email: lasya.sn@gmail.com

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