Namaste!
The yearly half-marathon by Blogchatter is back. I tend to stick to poems because they are easier to write. This time, I wanted to try something different. Though the event doesn’t require a theme, there’s no reason I shouldn’t have one.
Telugu Songs Lyrics
Telugu music has been a part of my life since I was a baby. While I enjoyed the music first and then the lyrics, in the last few years I actually focused on what makes Telugu melodies so memorable. It’s not just the tune, though we have had some marvelous music directors. It’s how the lyrics weave the tune. The lyricists played with words, meter, and rhyme scheme. Then the singers give the words a new life by adding the required emotions, stress, and intonation.
With this, I present my theme for the half-marathon: exploring a few of my favorite Telugu songs for their lyrical smarts.
And guess what? I actually planned this as a Medium series (Learning to Love my Language) three years ago, before life did what it often did, and I let it go. Maybe I can revive it on the website.
(I’ll paste the same introduction for all seven posts.)
Today’s Song: Chini Chini Asalu
- Movie: Manam (2014)
- Director: Vikram Kumar
- Music Director: Anup Rubens
- Lyricist: Chandrabose
- Singers: Shreya Ghoshal, Ashwin and Hari Arjun
Manam is the last movie the great ANR (Akkineni Nageswara Rao) acted in.
You can say it was a family drama with a complex reincarnation plot, but the execution and screenplay were very good. I don’t remember the other songs, but this one is popular and one of my favorites (for a reason).
The song uses repetition to the maximum: for alliteration within the same line and in subsequent lines.
- Oh Chinni chinni chinni chinni
- Chinni aashalu naalo regene – small/tiny wishes flare (come alive within me)
- Chiru chiru chiru chiru
- Chiru chindulu manase vesene – my heart made tiny and excited leaps (think of dance like nobody’s watching)
- Chitti chitti chitti chitti
- Chitti oohalu edalo oogene – tiny wishes rose (swirled) within my heart
- Em cheyanu? – what should I do?
- Em cheyanu?
- Em cheyanu?
- Tholi choopu nee paine – I saw you first (first love vibes)
- Tholi paluku neethone – I spoke the words with you first
- Tholi adugu neekai saagene – my first step forward is towards you
- Ho Ho Ho
- Tholi prema nuvvele – you are my first love
- thudi varaku neethone – I’ll be with you forever
- Ee maata naalo daagene – these words are hidden inside me (my heart)
The words chinni, chiru, and chitti have similar meanings. They imply small/tiny/little. The initial flare of feelings is tiny; however, the unsaid is revealed later when he says that this first step towards her is a promise to be with her forever.
For a little backstory: the hero knows his wedding is fixed with her, but she doesn’t know who he is. Curious, he goes to meet her, stays, helps her, becomes a friend, and truly falls in love.
- Ho
- Prematho vacchaane – I came with love
- Snehame gelichaane – and won your friendship
- Snehamu prema rendu naave – your friendship and love are both mine
- Ho
- Velugutho vacchaane – I came with daylight
- Needalaa maaraane – I became your shadow
- Velugu needallo thodu neeve – you are my companion in darkness and light
- Gundelo neevalle savvade perigene – you increased the sounds in my heart
- Gunde thadi nuvvayyaavule – you became the moisture of my heart (empathy and sensitivity)
These lines are in the man’s POV because they tell his side of the story. How he came to meet his future bride, became a friend, fell in love, and she meant so much to him that she was the reason his heart beats and made him believe in love.
The lines have end rhymes. Apart from that, the words repeat from previous lines to give them more rounded and intricate emotions. There’s love, their friendship, and then there’s both together. Think of it as the friends-to-lovers trope in a way.
Then he says he walked towards her in daylight even though she didn’t know who he was. He stayed back and became her shadow, helping and protecting her, and together, she became his partner in everything (light and darkness also imply different phases of life).
Finally, he concludes that she caused the disturbance (the good kind) in his heart and became the reason he believed in love. That his heart was hers alone and would be forever.
The refrain is I love you… Illa evvu. The lyricist takes them from the movie. This part of the movie is set before Indian Independence.
When the hero (a rich man) meets the heroine, he is so impressed that he blurts out ‘I love you’. She is a poor, illiterate farmer who demands to know why someone who claimed to be poor like her would know English. So he lies that she knows only that phrase, and it means to ask for something.
Illa evvu – give it here.
This becomes integral to their story and the song that symbolizes their budding relationship.
