One doesn’t really need a reason to listen to these songs but if reasons were needed a birthday is really the best one. (Basically, we are using this as an excuse to play these amazing songs. Join us won’t you?)
As Nagarjuna turns 60 today (wait, what?) here’s a small list of five songs (starring him of course), we’ve been listening to all day.
Amani Padave, Geethanjali (1989)
The setting, the circumstances, the music by Ilaiyaraaja… It’s all there. This song harks back to the beauty years of ’80s. Mani Rathnam’s Geethanjali saw Nagarjuna in a role so different from everything the actor was doing then. The risk sure paid off for everyone. (Actually we’re listening to all the songs in this album. How can you not?)
Botany Patamundhi, Shiva (1990)
We cannot resist the RGV-Nagarjuna-Amala extravaganza. We know there are other songs in which the camera stays steadfastly focussed on Nagarjuna, but this is perhaps the ‘funnest’ song in the album. And hey, Nagarjuna waltzes in and out of the song like a breeze too.
Greeku Veerudu, Ninne Pelladutha (1996)
In the year 1996, it seemed as if Nagarjuna’s women fans had found their anthem at last. After that whenever anyone said ‘Nagarjuna’, this song seemed to play somewhere in the background. The stuff of mythmaking legend this. Isn’t Tabu just fabulous here? Sandeep Chowta’s music and the way the camera’s gaze follows Nagarjuna, framing him in a way only heroines, Nagarjuna and SRK were back in the day, are the big draws as well.
Nenje Nenje, Ratchagan (1997)
The softness of this tune, the weight of the words, and the gentle video… everywhere you went the year this AR Rahman album came out, it seemed people were listening to this song. (Or talking about ‘that’ cricket scene.)
Hey Menina, Manmadhudu 2 (2019)
It can’t all be nostalgia, so we’re also giving this song a spin. Nagarjuna is still channeling that inner Greeku Veerudu, walking around, as the ladies can’t seem to resist. You get the drill?
Happy Birthday, Nagarjuna. Thanks for making the 80s and 90s the era of the mustachioed, handsome man. Alright, alright, also the 2000s and the 2010s… and well, 2020 is just around the corner.
