Gala night for India at Los Angeles as “Naatu Naatu” and “Elephant Whisperers” win Oscars

For India and its billion plus population, especially the cinema-lovers, Monday turned out to be bright and cheerful as not one but two movies made a mark at the 95th Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

The epic action drama in Telugu “RRR” directed by S.S. Rajamouli of the famed Babubali movies, which created history by becoming the first Indian film to win the Best Original Song Award at the Golden Globe this year at LA went on to bring more laurels for the country. Its composer M.M. Keeravani and lyricist Chandrabose won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

This vibrant and peppy number in the film with its amazing choreography by Prem Rakshith and dancing has been a chartbuster and popular. The song sequence features actors Ram Charan and Jr NTR who too were present at the Academy Awards.

“Naatu Naatu” had to slug it out with some of the top-shot songs nominated in its category. These included Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick”, Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, “This Is A Life” from “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, and “Applause” from “Tell It Like A Woman”.

Interestingly, this song was part of the Oscar ceremony and sung by Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava (the original singers), and danced by Lauren Gottlieb and it received a round of loud applause from the audience.

Based on the fictional story of two Telugu freedom fighters, Alluri Seetharama Raju and Komaram Bheem, the film has already collected more than Rs 1,200 crore worldwide and is still going strong.

Among others who feature in the film are Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn and Shriya Saran.

The stage for Indian domination started at this year’s Academy Award function when the documentary film “Elephant Whisperers” won the Oscar in the Best Documentary Short Film category. Guneet Monga, its producer and Kartiki Gonsalves accepted the honour on the stage.

The film took on “Haul Out”, “How Do You Measure A Year?”, “The Martha Mitchell Effect” and “Stranger At The Gate” to pick up the first honour of the evening for India.

The poignant narrative of this film revolves around a family who adopts two orphaned baby elephants in Tamil Nadu’s Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. Monga had earlier too won an Oscar for India in 2019 when his film “Period. End of Sentence” got the award in the Documentary Short Subject.