Item numbers no more a taboo

Top-league actresses ‘sye’ for special songs

Priorities of top-notch Telugu actresses seems have changed drastically in the last one to two years, since popular actresses like Tammanah, Kaajal, Hansika, Genelia, Samanta, Shruti Hassan and Anuskha (barring a song in Stalin) were reluctant to do special songs in other films since they were uncomfortable with the word ‘item’ number but it’s altogether a different story these days.

Glam diva Tammanah broke the norm and appeared in a special song in `Alludu Seenu’ and `Speedunnodu’ and others just followed suit. If Kaajal matched dancing steps with jr NTR in ‘Janatha Garage’, Shruti Hassan set the screen on fire with an foot-tapping number in `Aagadu’ and now Shriya Saran all set to scorch the screens with a song in `Nakshatram’.

“It’s true that top-notch Telugu actresses shied away from doing item numbers for many years,” says director Meher Ramesh, who had to convince Hansika to appear in pub song in “Billa’. “Initially, she was reluctant since some item songs in Telugu films were shot in bad taste, but I managed to convince her and she was happy with the stylishly-shot number which almost re-defined item songs,” he adds.

In fact, item songs are not altogether new to T-town, since sexy sirens like Jyothilaxmi, Jayamalini, Anuradha and Silk Smitha set the screen on fire with their raunchy numbers and left audience gasping for breath in 70’s-90’s.

“Those scorching numbers were in different league and were truly crowd-pullers. Youth and masses used to repeatedly watch those films and walked out of theatres once the song is done,” says veteran producer Prakash Reddy, who, however, says those item numbers got a makeover and became more refined over a period of time.

“Still we have our share of sexy sirens like Mumaith Khan, Hamsa Nandini, Laxmi Rai, Parvati Melton and Meenakshi Deekshit who are still drawing whistles for their jatkas and matkas,’ he adds.

Nevertheless, with A-listers like Kaajal , Shruti Hassan, Tammanah and Shriya Saran embracing item songs in a big way, filmmakers were forced to re-christen item song to special song and these actresses were reportedly pocketing Rs 30 to 40 lakh per song.

“It’s true that top actresses managed to rechristened item songs and charging a bomb for three to four days work. Of course, their names spell box-office magic since distributors and exhibitors insist on such songs to woo masses,” concludes director Vijay Bhaskar.