I assume that most of the people who’re reading this would have already seen our latest release, “Najareyudu”, if not please take a moment to give it a watch.
December 11, 2022:
From Chennai, I travelled to my hometown, and that was a calm and sweet morning. Home is always a best place, especially the prayer spot. As I started to read the word, God was teaching me on a subject titled, “The Experiences of Valley”. Mostly about the journey of Joseph, the panic experiences in particular.
Back then, I resigned my Job, and technically I must be praying for the next job. But, no, I didn’t do that. I don’t know why but I’m asking the Lord to give me a song as the Christmas is nearing!
From the childhood, God never failed to provide my needs, but it is me who failed almost everytime to work for him in full strength, or at least delayed.
So, I need the song first and Job next!
As I fasted and prayed, I’ve received the burden on the cross. But wait, what? I’m asking the Lord about Christmas song. why am I immersed with burden of cross? I’d like to make a celebration in next 10 days (Christmas).
In no time, I realized, What can be a great song, a psalm, or a hymn other than the one which unveils and explores the glory of the Christ on the cross? No, I’m not talking about those sweet ragas, emotionally vibrant tunes or well rhymed words. The songs that are born in prayers holding the power emerged out of the cross where the complete, full, living God allowed himself to hurt ruthlessly, hanging on a piece of wood. Just for you and me.
As I started to write what I received on the knees, the spirit led me to write two songs at a time, one about the Christmas and the other about the Cross, “Najareyudu”. I didn’t posted the lyrics of Christmas song here as it was not released yet.
Don’t ask me, why I wrote this in 2018 dairy haha! I have several dairies with me, I grabbed this in a moment thinking that I might forget what i received. Did you see? The first stanza in the draft is not what you heard today. Things always evolve over time in prayer, only for our good.
As both songs lyrics are locked, the primary focus is to make a Christmas song ready by Dec 25, 2022, and then the Good Friday song by April 2023.
But God had different plans.
Two days passed, two email notifications. Offer letters — Hyderabad & Chennai. God is faithful. By default, I chose the one in Chennai as I was used to the church fellowship there. As I waited on the Lord, To my surprise, he said, “Move to Hyderabad”.
Me, “Lord, you don’t want me to be in your temple? The Chennai job is permanent work form home, pay is more, and I can serve you more.”
Still, “Move to Hyderabad”
- Lord, give me a promise? — Isaiah 45:2
- Is this you calling me? — “I John 2:27”
- What’s going to happen in Hyd? — Job 8:22
A bit of disappointment. Yet, I obeyed.
Things started to change.
When I made this transition, Christmas was passed and blended in time. I didn’t get a chance to make my Christmas release. I initiated it, tried hard to edit, prayed, weeped, lot of hick ups, yet not able to make it on time. It is a seasonal song, I need to wait one more year to make it out again. All the money, and effort felt went in vein. Today, it is still in my archives. With an unreleased song and a failed expectation, I wished everyone a Happy New Year 2023.
This song, “Najareyudu” was planned to come out in April before Good Friday. But, all alone, I’ve lost that courage and strength to initiate it. It is hard when we fail at one project, immediately you have to do something similar. At least I knew some people in Chennai, but here in Hyderabad, I have no one.
I was down mentally. Those are the times, I doubted if I’m in the calling or am I just running after the talents. On the next sunday, my first Sunday in Hyderabad, I walked into the Church with a big question mark. The pastor was preaching a sermon titled, “What if the warriors become weak?”
I’m damn sure, it is for me, I’m not saying that I’m a warrior, but the one who dwelled in me, who made me plan, dream, and seed the projects to glorify his name, is a warrior. Word says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” 1 Corinthians 15:10
When David was small, he used to depend on God in almost everything. Just on him. After he became a King, there are times, where he considered the word of men, and lost the battles.
The sermon is a pat on my back, a call to re-stance. That sparked me. But not fully. I prayed through out the week.
Next Sunday, pastor was talking about Zerubbabel’s trails to build the Temple. As Zerubbabel laid the foundations of the temple, the people started to discourage him saying that the bar set by King Solomon is high, this new temple is not even half of the glory what we had before. In such demotivating situation, Lord says to Zerubbabel, “For who has despised the day of small things?” in Zechariah 4:10
I like it in Telugu.
కార్యములు అల్పములైయున్న కాలమును తృణీకరించిన వాడెవడు?
No matter how smallest our efforts may seem, if they’re seeded to glorify the Lord, no one can demise the day of small beginnings. Rejoice, for we are the co-workers with the Lord. What we have freely received, we give freely, as ministering to the Lord is a reward in itself. The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts – Haggai 2:9
I’m sure, God is talking to me, he was encouraging to not give a gap, reminded me to lean on the spirit not the letter or the processes of men.
As I prayed along, firstly, God eliminated the concept of festival focused projects in my schedule. Nothing like a Christmas song, Good Friday song etc. A song is a song for every day. The glory is every day. The worship is every day. So, no targets, I’ve just decided to make it and let God get it out in his time.
This time, I was more skeptical about quality. Relatively, I want to serve a better quality compared to Sandhyavelalo, our first release.
So, I sent the audio sample on Mar 23rd, 2023 to the music director (Sam). After the composition, arrangement, and mixing, and a lot of revisions, I received the final copy on June 14th, 2023.
83 days! That is just one week less to 3 months.
Good friday passed, we didn’t make any release. That’s fine, God has already prepared me for that, so, no problem. There are lot of struggles, heated revisions, friction moments in the team but end of the day we all understand that it is for the God who’s guiding us.
The good part is the video shoot. It was already done in April, on time. I asked my house owner to take a role and he is humble enough to agree. He said, “If my role can impact at least one soul to repent, I’m honoured to be a part of”. Needless to say, you saw how God used him, the weight he carried was impeccable. Parallelly, God kept a place in my heart near Jubilee hills as I travel along that road to my office everyday.
It is a lake with a small hill sediment in the centre. In the video, you might feel like it is somewhere inside a forest, but in fact it is a proper residential area near Madhapur. Earlier, the concept in my heart is to portray a man in sin whose fingers are tied to ten nails that were attached to a wooden trunk. Hard to imagine? I can understand.
One learning is, God always led us step by step. As we obeyed the first one, he progressed. I haven’t had a bound script for the video. I just planned certain moments, and had a few ideations. But when I was in the field, a whole new stream of thoughts started to flow in my mind. I spent there the previous evening, yet I didn’t get those ideas which I got just before pressing the record. This is not the first time, I experienced the same in the previous projects as well.
Come on! If you write a video script, plan and execute, then there would be something to be proud of. But if you don’t know how you’re going to shoot until that moment, you’d certainly feel like you’re just a toy in the game. And it is okay. To be honest, the feeling is healthy. It is very very important for us not to take that director’s hat. Leave it to the God, it is his project, his word, his people, his kingdom. We are servants. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him” – John 13:16
Even, fixing on the place is not easy. It was owned by a political builder. As I walked to him one evening, he was sitting in a container. Lot of construction work going on around.
I explained everything, 4 people, 2 hours, christian song! He was silent for a while. And then he said, “We have a meeting with KCR next week, we need to send a status report for this construction. We tried taking pictures but they didn’t turn out well. Can you take some pictures of the buildings when you bring your camera?”
I said “Yes, deal!”, later I spent, may be two evenings there, to walk, pray and plan the shots. We are only two, me and the house owner. A day before the shoot, we brought a big rope of 15 meters (if I remember it right) and a chalk box. While we were on the way back, my owner met two of his friends, and when they heard about the next day’s shoot, they were excited to join us. Two became four, and then two camera operators added up to six.
The next day, we were at the location by 4pm. It is very sunny. One of the member is good at drawing, so, while we are arranging the ropes to rocks, we asked him to write sin letterings on the rock surfaces.
I must say, that day is hard. There is no pre-planning, or sync among the actors, me, or the camera man. All we have is faith, and I know he who called us is faithful. Most of the story was jotted down on the ground.
Here are some of the pieces of videos I made on the location:
Fast forward to two hours, we finished the shoot. That is fairly short and fast. I copied the footage, and went back to my room, quickly turned on my laptop to see how the shots came out.
I was neutral. The main disappointment is that all of my shots were dusted and they didn’t looked good. I was confused, and didn’t touched them for few days. In May, my brother visited my room, and even, he didn’t like the shots where I do all the singing stuff.
Without any second thought, we immediately went to the location. No camera is available unfortunately. So, me, and my brother, both of us decided to go with my mobile and did a second shoot. It might be surprising but, yes, it is true, all of the shots in which I wear a blue shirt (the Ujala colour) were shot on my mobile – POCO F4
Today, after editing them out, even I can’t spot the different between sony alpha camera & poco mobile phone. This is pure Grace.
We were happy with footage. On and off it took me till October to publish it now on youtube. Ask me what is the most exciting part throughout? Video? No. Editing? No. Recording? No. I’ll say, it is the assurance I carried every time as the Lord continued to endorse the project with his promises. You don’t know how it’s going to look or sound on day one, yet, you know this is going to be good. That’s the exciting part.
Long enough. To wrap, I’m continuing to pray for this song to be a blessing, believing that God would use this to console the weeping, call the fallen, strengthen the weaken, burden the believed.
Today, I’m happy after reading through the encouraging words from many of my beloved people, and I redirect them to God for everything he has done.
No Gap. The next project would be a Tamil version of “Aaradhya Dhaivama Song”, which was originally written in Telugu by Pas. Rajababu Garu (Late). I’ve shared the sample to Sam, if you’re with me reading till here, I’d request you keep FaithOverflow in your prayers.
There is a promise, you’ll find it the opening of the song as well. It says – So, wherever the river flows everything shall live – Ezekiel 47:9
See you.