கொஞ்ச‌ம் வான‌ம்.. நிறைய‌ தேநீர்

One of the few con­sol­ing things in Chen­nai com­pared to Ban­ga­lore, is the FM chan­nels. I am not favourable to record a monot­o­nous voice through­out a cas­sette and lis­ten like Har­i­ha­ran or SPB hits. Instead, I like the unpre­dictable songs as aired in the good old AIR thi­raiganam days, where peo­ple talked slowly like friends [ I strictly hate the RJ’s in FM — U know their abil­ity is mea­sured in words uttered per minute .. BS ].

There was an excep­tion, where I lis­tened in FM to some­body talk­ing. It was Kav­in­jar Vaira­muthu. Usu­ally, he talks arti­fi­cially in his inter­views to express his intel­li­gence and rarely he speaks from heart. Vaira­muthu neram was one such pro­gram where spoke his expe­ri­ences from the heart. Let me share some snip­pets from his inter­view. This is just the part of his interviews.

VM has his own ups and downs in his career. Once he wrote all the songs in 3 films and they bombed in box office [ Amma, Pudhu kavithai, Ninaivel­lam nithya ]. He was con­sid­ered unlucky then. Later, he regained his power of writ­ing all songs in a film in 1985 [ Mud­hal mariyad­hai, Sindhu bhairavi ]. He faced the tough­est period dur­ing Raajiv’s assas­i­na­tion and there was sin­gle soul in the indus­try who helped him [ VM claims that he had just 6K in his account ] - it was AVM Sar­a­vanan. That bond­ing made him to write in all AVM films [ even with Chan­dra­bose :) ] and in their TV seri­als too.

- Sne­hid­hane has a rough start by singer Srini­vas and a sooth­ing take off from Sad­hana sargam.To con­tra­dict the melody they made singer Srini­vas to sing his lines in a dif­fer­ent pitch and the words did’t reach us softly. Srini­vas said this one of his inter­views and sang the slow ver­sion of it.

நேற்று முன்னிர‌வில் உன் நித்தில‌ப்பூ ம‌டியில்
காற்று நுழைவ‌து போல்
உயிர் க‌ல‌ந்தே க‌ளித்திருன்ந்தேன்..

இன்று முன்னிர‌வில் அந்த‌ ஈர‌ நினைவில்
க‌ன்று த‌விப்ப‌து போல்
ம‌ன‌ம் க‌ல‌ங்கி புல‌ம்புகிறேன்..

கூந்த‌ல் நெளிவில் எழில் கோல‌ச்ச‌ரிவில்
க‌ர்வ‌ம் அழிந்த‌த‌டி.. என் க‌ர்வ‌ம் அழிந்தத‌டி..

 
– The sec­ond round of VM was ini­ti­ated by Mani­rath­nam. In fact, after com­ing out of IR, Mani­rath­nam had the free­dom of choos­ing VM’s lines. Mani­rath­nam gave the free­dom to include san­gath thamizh in Naru­mu­gaiye [ Iru­var ] - more than peo­ple, it was praised by the uni­ver­si­ties. It’s full of the pure Tamil words.

- Another place the 2nd cen­tury Tamil used was in “Theen­daai” song from En Swaasak kaa­tre. How­ever, the kurun­thogai was expressed much with  the local moan­ings [ not by Chitra ! ].

- Enna saththam from Pun­na­gai man­nan is the lead song for a sui­cide. None of the visu­als, lines express about the hid­den agenda of their duet. [ இது எத‌ப் ப‌த்தியுமே க‌வ‌லையில்லாம‌ க‌ம‌ல் அவ‌ர் வேலையைக் காட்டிடுவார்.. :) ] It was SPB singing it in low pitch­ing as if ush­er­ing a secret message.

- It’s easy to sing for a duet but not for pathos. Some­times, nei­ther music nor the poetry can bring out the emo­tions well. SPB’s voice helped them in these 2 beau­tifu songs to express the emo­tional feel­ing of a lonely guy.. Devad­hai illam devi from 1000 nilave vaa and of course, En kaad­hale from duet [ we can include ‘Min­nale’ from May mad­ham too ].

- A painful song was actu­aly writ­ten for the movie Iru­var and was not pic­turised in the film. VM was upset and Mani­ratham con­soled him that he’ll def­i­nitely use the same in future. It was later used in Alai­payuthey. The song was ’ Evano oru­van vaasikki­raan ’ — it’s a poem which ARR directly com­posed tune on it.

- It’s Mani­rath­nam who included the pure Tamil words in a dis­cothe song ‘Yaakai thiri’ in Ayutha ezuthu. This was taken from the book ‘Kon­jam vaanam niraya the­neer’ [ Appaadee .. titile vandhaachu :) ].

- VM wrote ‘Nee son­naal nila varume’ as the orig­i­nal pallavi for ‘Edhedho ennam valarthen’. Still VM likes the orig­i­nal lines and asks Chi­tra to sing for him dur­ing any gatherings.

- Dur­ing the com­pos­ing of ‘Chandi­ranai thot­tadhu’ in Ratcha­gan, VM and ARR had a smal doubt about includ­ing the atyp­i­cal word like Arm­strong which they felt as unsuit­able in the tune. Har­i­ha­ran came to the stu­dio and deliv­ered the word eas­ily which con­vinced both to leave the word as it was. Once a Malaysian min­is­ter praised VM for inlud­ing sci­ence in Tamil songs. True !

- VM expressed his shock to know that the song ‘Thee thee’ in thiruda Thiruda was sung by Car­o­line, a chi­nese girl who never knew Tamil at all. One of the best rhythm pat­ters, I have heard. [ Till today, I never under­stood the male singer’s lines :)]. PCSri­ram played his part with shad­ows, rota­tions and zoom exper­i­ments for a song com­pletely pic­turised in sets. Paatu, mettu settu :)

 The tea should end here, when it’s more tasty and I’ll share more later.
 
 ARR got 5 beau­ti­ful tunes and a tamil film was exclu­sively made out [ Story ?.. Ada neenga vere :) ] for this film. Name the film and story behind this [ biggest tit­bit which I know :) ].
 
 :)
 
 Toto

Related Posts B

1. Kuru Kuru thogaiye.. Kurunthogaiye
2. To emu­late a singing bird
3. Sin­gara Singers — Naresh Iyer.