IR - Telugu Songs and Lyrics

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"The King is Back" - a flourescent globe with this caption embedded in a Ring that encircles the globe. That was all the trailer for "Andhappuram", a telugu movie circa 1999 that went on to gain good commercial success.
The King wasn't Prakash Raj, if not the protagonist, the chief mover in the movie.
It wasn't Jagapathi Babu, who played a delightful cameo.
It wasn't, most certainly, Sai Kumar, nominally the hero of the movie - if only because he marries the heroine; a qualification that was superseded by the pesky matter that he is bumped off half way into the movie.
It wasn't Soundarya, the protagonist of the movie.

It wasn't Krishna Vamsi, the director - assistant of Ram Gopal Varma, who had shot to fame with his own raw showcase of the shadow world of Hyderabad and Telengana with his initial movies.

It was, ofcourse, the man who had ruled the film music scene in the 80s. The 90s had seen the advent of Rahman in his native tamil, but in Telugu, it was only the lesser talents of M M Keeravani and Mani Sharma that took over.
Naturally, it was a big event that the King, as he indeed was, was back. To the point that everything else about a rather engrossing movie with engrossing performances got overshadowed.

That, then, is IR in Telugu, a man who appeals personally to a previous Telugu generation, something which his successors cannot claim to. Even the great Rahman, while a similar influence in Urban, Semi Urban and even pockets of rural Tamil Nadu for his generation, and with several hits, primarily dubbed from Tamil, in Telugu land, cannot claim that connect with Telugu audience.

But that is just beside the point as far as this thread is concerned.

This thread will seek to celebrate lyrical milestones in IR's telugu career - gems with outstanding lyrics that do not get much attention beyond the Telugu universe. While the focus is on the lyrics, the fact is those are inter-twined with IR's genius, and therefore an ideal platform to discuss IR's genius from yet another point of view.