WITH THE WORLD AT HIS FEET

AFTER HUNDREDS OF FILMS AND A CAREER SPANNING 33 YEARS, MUSIC COMPOSER M.M. KEERAVANT’S OSCAR VICTORY IS AS MUCH A PERSONAL TRIUMPH AS A NATIONAL ONE

- SUHANI SINGH AMARNATH K. MENON

Music is his life force, his whole being. It offers him a language that words don’t. And so, when M.M. Keeravani, 61, took the stage on the evening of March 12 to accept the ‘Best Original Song’ Oscar with lyricist Kanukuntla Chandrabose for ‘Naatu Naatu’—the first song from an Indian film to do so—he ditched the usual script to do what he does best. Instead of the standard bill of thanks to mentors, directors or family, his short, rather simple acceptance speech was a modified rendition of the 1978 Carpenters hit ‘Top of the World’: “There was only one wish on my mind/ so was Rajamouli’s and our families/ RRR has to win, the pride of every Indian/ and must put me on top of the world.”

It was a glorious, unusual moment for the world. And yet, for anyone who really knows Keeravani, not entirely surprising. An Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Critics’ Choice Award and a Padma Shri later—apart from eight Filmfare, one National Film and 11 Nandi awards (one of the highest recognitions in Telugu cinema)—it is only apt to say that as much as Keeravani makes music, music has made him too.

A LONG ROAD

Born in 1961 in Kovvur in Andhra Pradesh in a Telugu-speaking family, Keeravani grew up listening to Hindi songs on