Nee Manasu Naaku Telusu

Plot

Sridhar (Tarun) is a final year degree student and gets selected in the campus selections. He goes to Mumbai for an interview and while returning finds Preeti (Trisha) and loses his heart to her. Sridhar comes to know that Preeti was about to join in degree college and Preeti learns that he was a final year degree student. Sridhar is an ardent cricket fan, so is Preeti, while Sridhar is also a good football player. The principal of the college appoints a coach called Reshma (Shreya), who is also a student, for the football team led by Sridhar. Sridhar tries his best to trace Preeti by visiting several women's colleges, while Preeti also watches for Sridhar at men's college. Incidentally, Preeti helps Sridhar's mother, when she had a heart attack. In order to find Preeti, Sridhar goes to the LB Stadium where a cricket match is in progress and gets injuries in a bomb blast in the stadium. Just before the blast, both Preeti and Sridhar see each other but are not able to meet due to the blast.

Later Preeti's parents convince her to agree for a marriage and tell her to forget about the boy she was searching. At the same time, Sridhar's mother also tells him to concentrate on studies and go abroad to further his studies. At this juncture, Sridhar learns that Preeti is staying just behind his house, when her parents come to his house to inform the family of Preeti's marriage. Sridhar's friends participate in an inter-college football match and win the cup. Before his return, Sridhar's mother suffers yet another heart attack and Preeti's father admits her in the hospital. Then they come to know that Sridhar's brother-in-law was behind bars for no fault of his and Preeti helps him to come out of the case. Meanwhile, Sridhar's mother passes away. Later Sridhar's brother-in-law gets another job and the family leaves for Bangalore. Sridhar feels lonely and he decides to go abroad. After three years, Sridhar returns from abroad to find Preeti in the same compartment. To his surprise, Preeti is still unmarried and they unite.

Cast

Production

Trisha Krishnan had signed the film before any of her other films had released. For one song, 260 shots were taken and picturised at 90 locations in Chennai and Hyderabad.

Release

The film opened to mixed reviews, with a critic from The Hindu citing that "certain scenes have appreciable depth while some are downright superficial and predictable" and that it was "absorbing in parts, spontaneous in spurts, natural at times and clichéd now and then". However another critic labelled the film as that "the strengths of the film are technical values and grandeur and the weakness of the film are lack of clarity in screenplay and censored dialogues in first half".

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features six fresh tracks composed by A. R. Rahman. This album also marks the comeback of A. R. Rahman into Telugu cinema after nine years, following Gangmaster.

Surjo Bhattacharya, who crooned "Dheem Ta Dare" from Thakshak for Rahman, was chosen to sing "Askava" with newcomer Shreya Ghoshal of "Bairi Piya" (Devdas) fame. This song marked Shreya Ghoshal's first collaboration with Rahman. Chinmayi was approached by Rahman to sing "Kalusukundama" with the latter and "Snehitude Unte", after the former's critically acclaimed rendition of the title track of Kannathil Muthamittal became a huge success. Rahman later confirmed that he roped in Unni Menon instead. The song "Edho Edho" is sung by Karthik and Gopika Poornima. Carnatic singer and playback singer Sriram Parthasarathy was approached to sing the male lead vocals for "Masthura".

The same set of vocalists were used for the Tamil version, except for two songs. Mano and Unnikrishnan were replaced by S. P. B. Charan and Venkat Prabhu in the Tamil version of the song "Snehitude Unte", titled Oru Nanban Irundhal. Sriram Parthasarathy was replaced by Srinivas in the Tamil version of the song "Masthura", titled Asathura. The album received highly positive reception from audience, and positive reviews from critics. However, the songs "Askava", "Kalusukundama" and "Edho Edho Naalo" received extremely positive responses and were chartbusters for weeks. The album turned out to be a huge hit.