http://www.dhool.com/sotd2/756.html
- We are a couple of days late, but this one from Saravanan is our New Year Special! ellOrukkum engaLin puththaaNdu nalvaazhthukkaL!
"Writers and artists… Come actors and dramatists, Come all, those who work by hand and the thinkers, come and dedicate yourself to create a brave new world and a society that values freedom, independence, and social justice!" This was the clarion call of Hiren Mukherjee on May 25, 1943, and thus began a magnificent era in the cultural history of India with the formation of the Indian People’s Theater Association (IPTA).
And IPTA was not formed just overnight; it was the culmination of the efforts of various artistes over a period of time. The Progressive Writer's Association Conference held in 1936, the founding of the Youth Cultural Institute at Calcutta in 1940, and establishment of the People's Theater at Bangalore by a young Sinhalese writer Anil De' Silwa in 1941 were all catalysts that helped hasten the constitution of the IPTA.
But more than these, the harrowing times that India was going through and the need to pull the people out of their lethargy and indifference to the happenings around them was largely the necessity that mothered this invention. The ruinous, largely man-made famine in Bengal in 1942 stirred many radical artistes and writers into action (In later years, Satyajit Ray’s Ashani Sankat and Mrinal Sen’s Akaler Shondhaney have dealt with the cataclysmic famine) Binoy Roy, along with like-minded artistes like Prem Dhawan, Usha Dutt, Dasrat Lal and Reva Roy, formed the Bengal Cultural Squad and traveled all over the country with his adaptation of Vanik Jaunpuri’s Bhooka Hai Bengal, collecting money for famine relief. This ‘Squad’ and its missionary zeal was the forerunner of several such cultural groups springing up in various parts of the country. It is a fact that most of these groups were inspired by leftist idealogies and P.C.Joshi, then the General Secretary of the CPI, was the man behind persuading these groups to unite on a common platform. Thus IPTA was born in a humble hall of the Marwari school in Bombay. (The name IPTA itself was put forward by scientist Homi Bhaba)
Jawaharlal Nehru sent a congratulatory message to the Conference, hailing the formation of the IPTA. Trade Union Leader Joshi was first president, Anil De' Silwa was the General Secretary, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas was appointed the Treasurer, Binoy Roy and K.D.Chandi were the Joint-Secretaries. Regional Committees were also set up, drawn from reformist performers and members of various People Fronts in Bengal, Bombay, Madras, Delhi, Hyderabad, Punjab, Mangalore, Malabar and the North-East.
IPTA’s symbol, designed by the painter Chitta Prasad, was a profile of a drummer, serving as a reminder of the ancient, trusted mode of communication. The stated objective of IPTA was ‘to portray through the stage and other traditional arts the internal and external crises facing Indian society and polity and to enlighten the masses about their rights and the proper way to fight the twin evils of imperialism at home and fascism abroad’ . The formation of the IPTA co-coordinated and canalized all progressive tendencies that had hitherto manifested themselves in the form of music, dance and drama, and brought about trail-blazing changes in theater concepts. IPTA soon became a national movement that swept the length and breadth of India with its socialistic and nationalistic zeal. A wave of realistic performances in theater, music and cinema was ushered in by the promoters of IPTA.
Over the years, the roster of artistes/thinkers associated with IPTA reads like a who’s who of Indian Performing Arts. These include Niranjan Sen, Amar Shaikh, Shombhu Mitra, Dr. Raja Rao, Krishanchander, Rajendra Raghuvanshi, M. Nagabhushanam, Kaifi Azmi, Vallathol, Eric Cyprian, Sarla Gupta, Dr. S.C. Jog, Bimal Roy, K. Subramaniam, K.V.J. Namboodri, Shiela Bhatia, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Sahir Ludhianvi, Balraj Sahni, Mohan Segal, Ali Sardar Jafri, Mulkraj Anand, Romesh Thapar, T. Chalapthi Rao, Hima Devi, Bijon Bhattacharya, Annabhau Sathe, Shailendra, Prem Dhawan, Ismat Chugtai, Kanu Ghosh, Chetan Anand, Dina Pathak, Pt. Ravi Shankar, Sachin Shankar, Bahadur Khan, A.K.Hangal, Habib Tanvir, Abrar Alvi, Hemant Kumar, Adi Marzban, Salil Chowdhari, Manoranjan Bhattacharya, Tarla Mehta, Khayyam, Phani Muzumdar, Dev Anand, Shanti Bardhan, Chittoprasad, Harindranath Chattopadhyay, Thopil Bhasi, VP Sathe, Durga Khote, Keshavrao Date, Utpal Dutt, Ritwik Ghatak, Satyen Kappu, Sanjeev Kumar, Zul Vellani, Shaukat Kaifi, Manmohan Krishna, Basu Bhattacharya, Tapas Sen, Abid Razvi, M.S.Sathyu, Kuldip Singh, Ramesh Talwar, Sulabha Arya, Shabana Azmi, Farooque Shaikh, Kader Khan, Yunus Parvez, Mac Mohan, Javed Siddiqi, Sudhir Pande, Anjan Srivastava, Bharat Kapoor, Rakesh Bedi, and many, many others. Time and again, these artistes ‘established a new definition of the relationship between art, artists and the audience’.
And two great men who came to Tamil Cinema, fresh from their fruitful association with IPTA, were Nimai Ghosh and M.B.Srinivasan.
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Hugging the delighted young director, the redoubtable Russian director and theorist, Vsevolod Pudovkin exclaimed with wondering joy “I have seen an Indian movie for the first time!” For Pudovkin, his widely publicized visit in 1950 to India as the head of a large cultural contingent had been disappointing, to say the least. All the Indian movies he had been shown were either mythological costume dramas or unabashed copies of Hollywood hits, or a confused hotchpotch of both. And all this changed when he chanced to see a Bengali movie- a just released offbeat effort of a debutant director.
The movie was Chinnamul (The Uprooted/ 1950/Desha Pictures) Chinnamul was the first film that dwelt on the partition of India, narrating with brooding sensitivity the story of story of a group of farmers from East Bengal who are forced to migrate to Calcutta because of the Partition. The trauma was real; refugees were huddled in hordes on railway platforms, or herded into overcrowded camps. Entire hamlets were razed to the ground; plunder, rape and murder were ruthless and rampant. Employing innovative idioms juxtaposed intelligently with documentary footage, the film managed to convey the gruesome, gory terror that was unleashed, without even a single shot actually showing any violence! Chinnamul was a courageous and scathing indictment of the powers that planned the partition. Ritwik Ghatak, who started his illustrious career by making an on-screen appearance in Chinnamul, as well as working behind the camera as an assistant to Nimai Ghosh, was to demand with characteristic candour, “Nimai Ghosh's Chinnamul has started a new era. Have we been able to proceed further in our consciousness?”
Nimai Ghosh was born in what is now Bangladesh, in 1914. He was drawn to cinema as a young man and enrolled as an assistant to cameraman Bhibuti Das in 1932. He was among the young pioneers of IPTA, and became a close friend of Satyajit Ray. He was one of the founder members of the Calcutta Film Society in 1947, along with Ray and Chidananda Dasgupta. Ghosh was horrified by the Partition and the suffering that it brought in its wake, and set about recording on celluloid his own outrage at the tumultuous events. Thus the movie had a sense of rare, uncanny immediacy. Chinnamul used mostly new faces bereft of any make-up, a hidden camera for shooting in the streets, and quite daringly for its time, had no songs. The cinematography, in particular, fetched universal acclaim. Half a century has gone past, and even in a recent interview P.C. Sreeram says, ‘I was zapped by Nimai Ghosh's Chinnamul!’
Speaking of Chinnamul years later, Nimai Ghosh remarked, “I wanted to project the miseries of the refugees after the partition and also to expose the selfish motives of the politicians who were behind the partition. The Indian People’s Theatre Association movement helped me to understand the actual reality. Had I not been associated with this movement, I would not have been aware of the human beings around me. This awareness prompted me to make the film Chinnamul, which is regarded by some as a political film. I did not deliberately include politics, but it could not be separated from life either. I took the camera out of the studios into the open, to bring out the truth which shaped this film. I also used artists from I.P.T.A., some of them without previous acting experience, because I thought it could lend an air of authenticity to the film.”
Pudovkin was so enchanted with Nimai Ghosh’s work that he carried a print of Chinnamul back home, and lost no time in propagating the movie all over the Soviet Union. And it was in Moscow that our N.S.Krishnan and Director K.Subramaniam saw the Indian movie that had taken Russia by storm, and became aware of the genius of Nimai Ghosh. NSK and K.Subramaniam were in Moscow in 1951 as part of an Indian Cultural Delegation. There they met Nimai Ghosh, and NSK invited him to come to Madras and work in Tamil Movies. It was thus that Nimai Ghosh came to Madras.
Another account that I remember reading regarding Nimai Ghosh’s relocation to Madras is like this: Satyajit Ray had been so impressed by Ghosh’s unconventional angles and arresting frames in Chinnamul that Ghosh was Ray’s first choice to handle the camera for his Pather Panchali. But Nimai Ghosh, a member of the Communist Party, had to go underground when the party was banned and thus the cinematography of Pather Panchali went to Subrata Mitra. Presently, Nimai Ghosh resurfaced in Madras, and continued to live and work there.
When we look at the resourceful and talented technicians who were working in Tamil movies in the 50s, we find that many of them were from the Bombay and Calcutta. Even amongst the cameramen, we had the likes of Kamal Ghosh, Jithen Banerjee and Sailen Bose who hailed from Bengal and who were much sought-after cinematographers in Tamil and Telugu movies. Nimai Ghosh joined this bustling brigade and worked for many Tamil films throughout the 50s. The Tamil films for which he handled the camera include TKS Brothers’ Inspector (1953/ Jupiter Pictures), T.R.Ramachandran’s pon vayal (1954/ Jayanthi Productions), TKS Brothers’ raththapaasam (1954/ Avvai Productions), T.R.Ramachandran’s gOmathiyin kaathalan (1955/ TRR Productions), R.S.Mani’s maaman magaL (1955/ Mani Productions), Nagerkoyil S.Nagarajan’s avan amaran (1958/ The People’s Films) and Sahasranamam’s naalu vEli nilam (1959/ Seva Screens).
It was at this juncture that like-minded communists, who had been awed by the visual impact of Chinnamul, approached Ghosh to handle the camera and also direct their pioneering joint effort, paathai theriyudhu paar.
In later years, Nimai Ghosh went on to do the cinematography of Balachandar’s early films, up to anubhavi raja anubhavi (1967/ Ayya Films). He handled the camera for Jayakanthan’s experimental yaarukkaga azhuthaan (1966/ Asiajyothi Films) and Malliyam Rajagopal’s kasturi thilagam (1970/ Kavitha Arts). During this time, he worked in some landmark Kannada movies as well. sooRaavaLi (Chitra Bharati), written by M.A.Abbas with cinematography and direction by Nimai Ghosh saw a belated release in 1981.
Nimai Ghosh passed away in 1988, but to a discerning cineaste, a genius like Nimai Ghosh knows no death. To this day there functions in Trichy a ‘Nimai Ghosh Film Society’, which does excellent work in propagating good cinema.
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Along with bringing about refreshing changes in drama and reviving traditional arts like ‘burrakatha’ of Andhra and ‘pawada’ of Maharashtra, IPTA also ushered in a renaissance in music in general and choral music in particular. In fact, the modern choir music in India owes its origins to IPTA. Iqbal’s ‘saarE jahaan sE accha’ became hugely popular when composed by Pandit Ravishankar for the Central Cultural Troupe in 1944. Salil Chowdhury, Binoy Roy, Jyotirmai Moitra, Prem Dhawan, Shailendra, Hemang Vishwas, Vallathol, Narendra Sharma, Anil Biswas, Jyoti Prasad Agarwal, Bhupen Hazarika and many others composed stirring songs in many languages, and were also instrumental in spearheading the people’s choir movement. Ruma Guha Thakurta set up the Calcutta Youth Choir; and IPTA nurtured for the South, the great M.B.Srinivasan.
M.B. Srinivasan had gone to Lakshadweep islands to train a youth choir there, when he suffered a massive heart attack and passed away on 9th March, 1988. I was studying for my +2 exams when I read of his demise. In the midst of frantic last minute revisions, I still mourned his passing away, for many of his songs had brought me so much joy and many, many hours of listening pleasure.
True, he had composed music for only 9 Tamil films- but he had created some songs of timeless enchantment in those few films- from the bewitching ‘thennankeetRu oonjalilE’ to the moving ‘amma undhan kai vaLaiyaai’- songs that will live on to tell the tale of a genius…A great musician, and a great human being, a noble soul who strove throughout his life to better the lot of his fellow beings, all the while creating songs of eternal allure.
Manamadurai Balakrishnan Srinivasan was born in 1925 in Chithoor, where his father was working as a Lecturer in an Agricultural College. Music was an integral part of his childhood, as both his parents had great love for it. MBS grew up in times when the freedom struggle was at its zenith. MBS, though hailing from an affluent family, was attracted to Communist thoughts, inspired perhaps by his uncle M.R.Venkataraman who gave up a flourishing career in law and joined the Communist Party. As a student of Madras Presidency College, MBS joined the Madras Students Organization (M.S.O.) Along with like-minded enthusiasts like S.Damodaran and Baladhandayudham, MBS was actively involved in garnering student support for imprisoned freedom fighters and conducting patriotic meetings, where Bharathiyar’s fiery songs were sung with fervour.
For a while, MBS worked in the office of the Communist Party’s Parliamentary Committee in Delhi. It was then that he got involved with IPTA and helped in bringing about plays and road shows highlighting problems faced by people in everyday life. Whilst going about this, he also got an exposure to musical influences from all corners of the country. He also underwent formal training in classical music.
It was during this period that MBS met and fell in love with Zahida Kitchlew, who shared with ardor his passion for both music and people’s causes. Zahida was the daughter of the great nationalist Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew. In Zahida, MBS found a perfect soul mate and married her- he a Tamil Aiyangaar and she a Kashmiri Muslim- but what does religion matter, when hearts unite! They named their son Kabir, after that wonderful poet, who was celebrated alike by both Hindus and Muslims.
Let us now take a cursory glace at the works of MBS in Tamil films:
1. paathai theriyuthu paar (1960/ Kumari Films)
2. dhaagam (1974/ Kavya Chitra) MBS had to wait for 14 years for his next Tamil film! Again an off-beat venture directed by Babu Nandhankode that starred Muthuraman, Nandita Bose, Rajkokila and Major Sundararajan. Songs were the couplet ‘vaanamengum parithiyin jothi’ (KJY) followed by ‘urugidum vELaiyilum’ (SJ) and ‘vaanam namadhu thandhai’ (SJ, Muthuraman & chorus)
3. pudhu veLLam (1975/ NVR Pictures) K Vijayan, who was a close friend of MBS, besides being the hero of paathai theriyuthu paar, was the director of this film and entrusted MBS with the film’s music. The film starred Sivakumar and ‘Kannada’ Manjula. Songs were ‘idhu pongi varugindRa pudhu veLLam’ (TMS), ‘thuLi thuLi thuLi’ (PS), ‘naan raja veettu kannukutti’ (PS) and ‘erumai aNNaachi’ (TMS).
4. eduppaar kaippiLLai (1975/ Sakthi Cine Arts) was directed by K.Vijayan. The film starred Jaishankar, Srikanth, Bhanumathi, VA Nirmala and others. Songs were ‘azhagu raaNi kathai ithu’ (PS), ‘kiss me son’ and ‘Meet my son’ (both by Bhanumathi) and ‘ponnum mayangum poovum vaNangum’ (KJY & PS)
5. madhana maaLigai (1976/ NVR Pictures) was directed, again, by K Vijayan. The film starred Sivakumar, Srikanth, Alka, Manorama and others. The songs were ‘yEriyiley oru kashmir rOja’ (KJY & PS), ‘oru chinna paRavai’ (SPB), ‘aasaiyO suvaiyaanathu’ (PS), ‘under the mango tree’ (Usha Utup), ‘valathu kaalai eduthu vechu vaangadi’ (VJ & chorus) and ‘paraparapara pattampoochi’ (PS & chorus)
6. agragarathil kazhuthai (1979/ Nirmithi Films). Directed by the genius John Abraham, the film had no songs. The background music was by MBS, who also acted as the chief protagonist, along with Krishnaraj, Swathi, Raman. Savitri and Veeraraghavan. The screenplay was by Koothuppattarai Muthusami. The film was screened in the Locarno Film Festival and is considered a milestone in the history of parallel cinema in India.
7. pudhu seruppu kadikkum (Rajaram Theatres)- The movie was directed by Jayakanthan and starred Srikanth and Saradha. I don’t think the film was ever released, but I have seen the EP record- it was dated 1978. The songs, penned by JK, were ‘chithirappoo sElai’ (SPB) and ‘udalenbaar uyirenbaar’ (VJ).
8. nijangaL (1982/ Ramyachitra) Directed by K.S.Sethumadhavan, the film starred Sivakumar, Menaka, Anandi, YGP, Cho, Kuladeivam Rajagopal and others. The songs were ‘amma undhan kai vaLaiyaai’ (VJ), ‘un kaadhOdu kaadhOdu’ (SPB & SPS) and ‘namma Indhiya dhEsam kooda’ (TMS & chorus)
I know it seems incredible- but that is the total count of the Tamil films that came his way! A paltry 8- and that includes a film that had no songs and another that was never released! Can you believe that a genius who created a miracle like ‘thennankeetRu oonjalilE’ had to wait for 14 years for his next film? But then, our Tamil Film Industry has been a hotbed of malicious propaganda, cunning machinations, deep-seated intrigue, rampant sycophancy, and has always looked with suspicion at harbingers of change of any kind.
But the same destiny which closed the door of tfm for MBS, threw wide open for him the portals of Malayalam films, and there MBS found enchanting avenues to create his kind of music. Internationally acclaimed filmmakers like KG George, MT Vasudevan Nair, Adoor Goplakrishnan and Aravindan came to MBS repeatedly to set music for their films. MBS bagged the Kerala Government Award for the best Music Director for four years. It was MBS who, in 1961, gave KJ Yesudas his first ever film song, (a short verse by Narayana Guru) in the film kalpadukaL. Jayachandran got the State Award for the song ‘raagam sriragam’, composed by MBS for the film bandhanam.
Be it any language, MBS gave his best to all his films. The first film in Baduga language, Kala Thapitha Pailu, had memorable music by MBS. MBS was the pioneer in Radio jingles- Many of the jingles heard in the early 70s were composed by him.
MBS was not content to rest with his laurels in film music. Through music, he wanted to inspire in children the qualities of patriotism and National Integration. The beginning was made when he trained 25 students to sing 6 songs of Bharathiar for the iLaya bharatham programme of AIR in August 1970. Under his guidance, the bharathi iLaignar isaikkuzhu was constituted in 1971, which blossomed into the Madras Youth Choir in 1973. MBS was instrumental in setting up such choirs in many parts of India. Songs of Bharathiar, Bharathidasan, Tagore and Iqbal, when sung by hundreds of children in one voice, evoked rare emotional fervour in the listeners.
MBS loved children- most of his sErndisai programmes were by children from the Corporation schools and children from the slums. MBS headed the Madras Youth Choir right from its inception up to his death in 1988. After his demise, Zahida took over the responsibility with enthusiasm. Zahida passed way on 23rd October, 2002.
MBS was honoured with the Award for Creative Music by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1986. He galvanized the Cine Music technicians to form a Union and demand prompt payments and fixed wages. He was instrumental in the formation of the Indian Performing Right Society Ltd (IPRS) to give Copyright protection to Music Directors and lyricists.
MBS has left behind a rich, vibrant inheritance. Today performing artistes in every nook and corner of the world remember him with gratitude- Rajkumar Bharathi and Sudha Raghunathan who have sung in his choir, Subha Harinath who teaches music and performs in Australia, Sundar who works with top composers in North America, Karthika Ganesan who is a ‘Naatiya Kalanidhi’ in Sri Lanka, Kaveri Sridhar who formed the Bangalore Youth Choir….these are just a few from the thousands of artistes whose lives MBS has touched in one way or the other.
Even on the fateful day, when MBS left for his heavenly abode, he was engaged in training a Youth Choir in a remote island of Lakshadweep- urugidum vELaiyilum nalla oLi thandha mezhugu thiri….
* * * *
In the late 50s, a group of Communist Comrades used to meet regularly and over innumerable cups of tea and cigarettes, debate on topics close to their heart, including cinema. They were filled with chagrin that Tamil filmmakers could come up only with irksome melodramatic themes, tired rehashes of mythological lore and furtive copies of borrowed ideas. Like Bertolt Brecht, they too lamented, “How much longer are our souls, leaving our ‘mere’ bodies under cover of the darkness, to plunge into those dreamlike figures up on the stage, there to take part in the crescendos and climaxes which ‘normal’ life denies us?” .
Comrade S.Damodaran was the leading light of this enterprising group that decided to venture into filmmaking, and along with like-minded friends like Uthamapalayam Jamal, K.V.Ramasami, MBS, V.M. Pazhanisamy and Somu, formed a company called Kumari Films. A total 45 comrades joined together to form this company, each one subscribing to shares ranging from Rs. 500- Rs. 5000. They refused to accept more than Rs. 5000 from any single individual. Profit was not their only driving motive, they were filled with idealistic fervour and wanted to try their hand at something different.
Reminisces JK in his ‘oru ilakkiyavaathiyin kalai ulaga anubavangaL’, “pala muRpOkku thOzhargaL muyaRchiyinaal ‘Kumari Films’ ennum padathayarippu niRuvanam thuvangappattathu. adhil sambandhappattavargaL anaivarum communist-gaLaavum communist anudhaabigaLaagavum thozhilaaLargaLaavum irundhadhaal avargaLOdu enakku thodarpu nerukkamaaga irundhadhu. thOzhar M.B.Srinivasan indha niruvanathin thOtRathiRku mukkiya kaaraNamaanavar. thiraikkathai ezhuthukiRa poRuppai naangaL anaivarum R.K.Kannanidam oppadaithOm. indha padathil samoogam, arasiyal, thozhiRchangam, vilaivaasi uyarvu, share market veezhchi, broker-gaLin soozhchi, kaLLamarketkkaarargaLin kayamai endRu ellaa vishayangaLaiyum oru sera thiNiththu…idhan paal ilaadhadhu illai engiRa maathiri kathaiyai amaippathu endRa koLgaiyil azhuthamaana pidippudaiya engaLukku oru kuRaiyaaga illamal mana niRaivaiyE thandhadhu”.
Thus the comrades sat together, and the story titled paathai theriyuthu paar took shape over many animated discussions. Comrade R.K.Kannan drafted the screenplay and penned the dialogues. K.Vijayan, who was working as a railway employee in Ponmalai Station and acting in the plays produced by Comrade Simon’s vaLLuvar kalai mandRam was roped in to play the fiery, principled hero. S.V.Sahasranamam, T.K.Balachandran, S.V.Subbiah, Muthuraman, V.Gopalakrishnan, L.Vijayalakshmi and Sundaribai and were the other actors.
The storyline goes thus. Sundaram Pillai works as an accountant in a large company. He is known for his integrity and discipline. Shankar and Meena are his children. He also brings up his late friend’s son, Murugesan. Murugesan had imbibed all the noble principles from Sundaram Pillai and works as a labourer in a cotton mill. Murugesan and Meena fall in love. Stung by the oppressive policies of the management, Murugesan becomes an aggressive member of the Labour Union. He manages to form a co-operative store to help the poor get essential commodities at fair prices. The labourers raise their voice against black-marketeering and hoarding, and notch significant victories after a bitter struggle.
Nimai Ghosh took on the twin responsibility of cinematography and direction.
Music was by M.B.Srinivasan. The comrades were very particular that the songs should not be incongruously inserted into the story; all the song sequences appeared in perfectly natural situations.
Though we have earlier featured two songs from the movie as SOTD, the entire album is worth a revisit.
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Song # 1: maasil veeNaiyum sung by S.Janaki & A.S.Mahadevan.
Meena (L.Vijayalakshmi) sings this thEvaram, and her father Sundaram Pillai (Sahasranamam) joins her midway with fervour.
There are three pieces (maasil veeNaiyum, namachivayavE gnanamum kalviyum, viragil thEyinan) from Thirunavukkarasar’s thEvaram that feature in this song.
Those were S Janaki’s early years. It is a matter of ceaseless wonder that SJ who underwent very little formal training in music was entrusted with so many classical and semi-classical songs in films in all languages, and she did ample justice to all of them. Hark at the light brigas with which she adorns the lines in this song…. It adds so much luster to the fervent traditional lyrics
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Song # 2: ‘rasa maga pOlirundhE’ by A.L.Raghavan & Chorus. Lyrics by KCS. Arunachalam.
The workers frequent a humble eatery on their way to work; and they are dismayed at the dwindling size of the idlis there. Beating the aluminum plates and tumblers in harmony, they express their outrage in a great frolicsome song.
Comrade KCS, who passed away in 1999, was a gifted poet who edited the ‘thamarai’ magazine for many years. His ‘paattu varaatha kuyil’ is a remarkable literary work. KCS penned the famous ‘sivandha rOja malarai aNindhu’ tuned by MBS for his choir. He wrote a couple of songs in sooRavaLi (1981) and sanganaatham (1984)
TV snippets of conclaves of communist parties always show party men with sober faces, disheveled hair and rumpled kurtas deliberating issues of grave concern. Hence it comes as a delightful revelation that a die-hard communist like KCS. Arunachalam had such a scintillating sense of humour.
See how he laments the hardness and dwindling size of the idlis with comic felicity- ‘raasa maga pOlirundhE.. naalu pEru paarthu unnai lEsa eNNi pEsalaachu peNamNi, un nenju kallaai maaRipocchE kaNmaNi!’ and again the hilarious ‘iddiliyE yEn iLaitthu pOnaai, neeyum endha payyaiyal meedhu kaadhal aanaai?’
This song must have been among the earliest songs of Ayyampettai Lakshmana Raghavan, and along with the jaunty chorus voices, he makes merry with the mischief-filled lyrics and rollicking composition.
MBS comes up with a unique imaginative blend of pop-baila-dappankuthu, and what a riot the song is!
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Song # 3: thennankeetRu oonjalilE by P.B.Srinivas & S.Janaki. Lyrics by Jayakanthan.
Yes, I know this song has been put up earlier, but this version today features one of tfm’s best-kept secrets: the elusive, elusive second verse! I have listened to the complete song only once long years back on thamizh sEvai iraNdu, and had been searching for it ever since. I got it finally from a Srilankan friend who brought back from Sri Lanka many songs from my wishlist of many years.
Meena (LV) and Murugesan (K.Vijayan), deeply in love, read together a book titled ‘jayakanthan kavithaigaL’, and sing aloud the verses, imagining themselves floating in the sylvan surroundings that the verses summon…
With his flute, piano and violins, MBS composes a song of timeless enchantment; a tune that lingers over decades with unhurried allure, and singers add caressing flourishes like the gentle breeze in the still of the night. PBS sings only the pallavi, SJ sings only the charaNams, and two unite in that immortal humming, quite like the union celebrated in lines ‘vaanai bhoomi azhaikkuthu, thoduvaanil iraNdum kalakkuthu…’
The song remains one of the favourites of PBS himself. Of his only film song for MBS, he is said to have wondered with awe, ‘oru paattu thaan, adhanaal enna, eppErppatta paattu!’
When we met PBS in 2003 and reminded him of this song, his eyes lit up in nostalgia. Speaking of SJ, he said, ‘She is truly great! andha ammavukku 2+ 2-na ennaanu theriyaadhu, aana endha maathiri paattu, evvaLau kashtamaana pattu koduthaalum, udanE grahichu paadiduvaanga! I admire her tremendously!’
As late as in 2000, during the SJ Concert in Chennai, PBS felicitated SJ on the stage and they joined to sing this bewitching duet. Age told, but the magic was still intact. So many of us jumped from our seats and gave the living legends a standing ovation!
A moment…An eternity…
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Song # 4: chinna chinna mookuthiyaam by TMS. Lyrics by KCS. Arunachalam.
Meena and Murugesan keep up their rendezvous atop a hillock. As Meena nestles happily in her lover’s rough embrace, they hear a stone-quarry worker wooing his beloved, and singing to her with rustic ardour.
‘Communism has nothing to do with love’ declared Mao Tse-tung with smug disdain. I wish he could have read the romantic verses of Turkish poet Comrade Nazim Hikmet or ‘chinna chinna mookuthiyaam’ of Comrade KCS. Arunachalam! Perhaps the great leader would be mollified when he hears KCS, even in this moment of throbbing passion, showing his true colours in lines like ‘sigappu kallu mookuthiyaam’ and ‘vetthila pOtta un vaai sivakkum, kannam vetkathinaalE sivandhirukkum!’ The romantic heart hidden in the crusty comrade reveals itself in ‘kazhutthai chutthi Or attiyalaam, un kattazhagE oru pattiyalaam!’
I can never get enough of this vintage TMS! How dreamy and lovelorn he sounds as he croons the 4 stanzas, and how joyful and exuberant is that ‘hEy’ in the middle of each charaNam! Old-fashioned, leisurely romance, where sunny afternoons merge into balmy evenings… and balmy evenings make way for dream-laden nights…
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Song # 5: ‘azhutha kaNNeerum paalaaguma’ sung by P.Suseela. Lyrics by Jayakanthan.
The mill is closed as the workers are on strike. Idealism is all fine, but will it help in lighting the kitchen hearth? The wives of the workers struggle to feed their children; one such young mother who is unable to feed her wailing newborn, asks plaintively, ‘azhutha kaNNeerum paalaaguma, adhanaal unadhu pasi theeruma?’ She is famished and her breasts have dried up. Tears she has in copious supply, and milk she has not an ounce.
This poignant song never gained the recognition it deserved. JK says sadly, “idhil naan reNdu paadalgaL ezhuthinEn. ondRu miga pirabalamaana ‘thennangeetRu oonjalilE’. matRoRu paadal enakku migavum pidithathu. Suseela paadiya andha paattu oru yEzhai thaayin thaalaattu. ‘azhutha kaNNeerum paalaaguma’ enbathu pallavi. ippOthu ennaithavira vERu yaarukkum ninaivillai endRE thOndRugiRathu!”
P.Suseela brings heart-rending anguish in her delineation, and with typical grace, gives aching life to JK’s forlorn lines. The violin filled classic interludes, lending an ambience of an operatic tragedy, must have been considered highly inventive in those times.
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Song # 6: ‘uNmai oru naaL veLiyaagum’ by Trichy Loganathan. Lyrics by Pattukkottai Kalyanasundaram.
The workers go in a procession, protesting against the wily, heartless owners. And they march singing this song of determination and hope.
uNmai oru naaL veLiyaagum
adhil uLLangaL ellaam theLivaagum
porumai oru naaL puliyaagum- adhaRku
poiyum purattum baliyaagum!
makkaL kavignar Pattukottai Kalyanasundaram was a fervent communist at heart and filled the lines with righteous indignation at the continued oppression of the working class. Sadly, he was not alive when this film was released. Listen to the lines ‘thaazhampoovai thalaiyil maraithaalum vaasam maRaivathu kidaiyaathu’, don’t you remember a lyricist plagiarizing this brilliant analogy in later years?
The trumpet and the drums give a feel of a military march past and MBS puts his famed choir effect to brilliant use in this rousing song. Trichy Loganathan portrays with aplomb the grit and gusto of the workers.
As an interesting aside, it was during the making of paathai theriyuthu paar that V.Gopalakrishnan brought Vaali to MBS and introduced him as an aspiring lyricist. MBS asked Vaali to come up with lines on social awareness, and Vaali came up with some lines at once. But MBS felt that the lines that Vaali penned didn’t fit the film’s feel. In later years, Vaali used the same lines for another film, and the song, ‘koduthathellaam koduthaan’ went on to become immensely popular.
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M.R.Venkataraman presided over the unpretentious event, and Jeevanandam cranked the camera for the first shot of paathai theriyuthu paar. The shooting proceeded at a brisk pace, for each shot had been planned in meticulous detail and much in advance. Nimai Ghosh worked to create a movie that brought into the portals of Tamil Cinema shades of European Neo-Realism, Russian Avant-Garde and Bengali Leftist Theater.
Despite all this and the haunting album by MBS, paathai theriyuthu paar, released on 18th November 1960, was a colossal commercial failure. And in hindsight the crestfallen comrades realized that they should not been content with merely making the movie, they should have also taken upon themselves its marketing and distribution. For it was alleged that the big studio owners/ producers were determined to nip in the bud the entry of the communists into Tamil cinema, and after buying the rights of the movie, chose to release it in some obscure suburban theaters, or worse still, not release it all! AV Meyyappa Chetttiar, it is said, secured the distribution rights for Madras, and released the movie for a brief while in a little known Murugan Talkies somewhere in the outskirts. It is not known if the prints of this movie are available anywhere today. In my time, I have never known paathai theriyuthu paar to be screened in any theater or shown on television.
But on second thought, all that the bourgeois barons gained was a pyrrhic victory. The comrades had carried their point home by making a movie all by themselves, and a good one at that, sans any charismatic star or even seasoned technicians. paathai theriyuthu paar was a daring experiment that gave abundant creative satisfaction to the comrades involved in its making. Perhaps the big filmmakers wished that paathai theriyuthu paar would be forgotten quickly, but here they hadn’t contended with the doughty Radio Ceylon. For by going to town with the wondrous album, thamizh sEvai iraNdu kept the memory of paathai theriyuthu paar alive for decades. True, I have never heard ‘azhutha kaNNeerum paalugama’ or ‘uNmai oru naaL’ aired, and have only very vague memories of listening to ‘maasil veeNaiyum’ and ‘raasa maga pOlirundhE’, but can recollect with avid clarity the unabated pleasure each frequent broadcast of ‘thennankeetRu oonjalilE’ evoked and the unanswered questions that it fuelled regarding the song’s picturization, the movie itself, and, of course, MBS. ‘chinna chinna mookuthiyaam’ was a thEnkinnam regular, and I received it with mixed feelings, for this long song meant one song less in the programme! Be it as may, paathai theriyuthu paar is ensconced snugly in a rightful place of pride in the annals of tfm.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I…
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference!
- Robert Lee Frost (The Road Not Taken)