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 An erudite once remarked - “The knowledge of music cannot be learnt, it transpires as an innate quality”. Without a shadow of doubt, it applies to Mani Sarma who is one of the most accomplished and respected music directors of our era. From humble beginnings of a keyboard player, Mani passed through a whole gamut of challenging and demanding times to emerge as the number-one music director.Born into a musically affluent Brahmin family, Mani is the youngest of 5 children. Many musical geniuses have their music roots at home and Mani is no exception. His father was his first guru. Mani’s zeal and fervor for music comprehended and encouraged by his parent’s blessings enabled him to pursue a passion in the field of music. Mani started his career as a keyboard player and performed in that role for over a decade. His foray into Telugu movies started in the year 1998. Although his first movie to be released was “Super Heroes”, it was Chiranjeevi’s “Bavagaru Bagunnara” that made him a household name. “Choodalani Vundi” made him a force in the Telugu film industry. The “ramma chilakamma” song in this movie became a mantra with youth, kids and mass alike and even today this album remains one of Mani’s best. If the first year of Mani was just like a sample of his talent, the future years made him the biggest and best in business. He composed music to various musical blockbusters on a consistent basis throughout late-nineties through the present day. His songs possess an unmatchable rhythm, beat-orientation and a rich orchestrization. Some music directors are good at melodies and some are good at scoring mass oriented songs; Mani’s strength is ability to score for any genre of song with the same consummate finesse. His re-recording is unmatched and unrivaled.  Mani is known as the luckiest-charm for various star heroes. Each time a hero faced career crisis situation at the box-office, Mani bailed them out and helped the respective hero deliver a blockbuster. Chiranjeevi after facing consecutive failures in 2001 had all hopes pinned on “Indra” and Mani composed sensational music that made this movie stand as the biggest hit of Andhra box office. As a bonus, he composed another winner for “Tagore”. For NBK, he gave absolute winners in the form of “Samara Simha Reddy”, “Narasimha Naidu” and “Lakshmi Narasimha”. For Pawan, Mani always reserved his best and gave mind-blowing music for movies like “Kushi”. Junior NTR became a star with “Aadi” and no prizes for guessing who the music director is. With Mahesh, the combination is lethal; Mahesh proclaimed Mani as the best music director and the latter delivered with unswerving loyalty. The movies in their combination are “Murari”, “Okkadu”, “Athadu” and the recent blockbuster “Pokiri”. As a matter of fact, most of the top heroes insist on Mani’s music for their movies.In addition to the above movies, Mani has various musical bonanzas to his credit like “Annayya”, “Anji”, “Jai Chiranjeeva”, “Ravoyi Chandamama”, “Preminchukundaa Raa”, “Gudumba Shankar”, “Balu”, “Rajakumarudu”, “Bobby”, “Arjun”, “Radha Gopalam”, “Chirunavvutho”, “Sri Anjaneyam”, “Athanokkade”, “Manoharam” and many more. For his efforts, Mani won the prestigious NANDI award for the year 1998 and three filmfare awards. As a fan and admirer, I wish Mani all the best for his future endeavors and hope he gives winning music for all his movies Sreekanth sreedevara@yahoo.com |