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- 'Ragapravaham' Sundar alias Anniyan writes:
Song: Chinna arumbhu malarum
Film: PangAligaL
Music: S Dakshinamurthy
Lyric: Marudhakasi
Singer: P. Suseela
If it is Neela vanna kanna vaada for R Balasaraswathy, then it is definitely this SOTD for P Suseela. Always songs composed for lullabies will be very special and particularly this song is a class. An out and out P Suseela song and I would rate this song among her top 25 of tfm 50s easily. She paints a mesmerizing lullaby right from the opening humming, the sheen in her voice being very impressive. Just listen the way she sings …sirippai sindhi valarum…aha! Is there any letter between ‘si’ and ‘chi’? PS enjoys and sings every bit of the song with the required bhavam. A lullaby in all its grandeur- soothing and caressing!
Alibaba fame Susarla Dakshinamurthy is the brilliant composer of this song. The violin piece before the pallavi is beautiful. S.Dakshinamurthy employs clarionet throughout which enhances the vintage appeal besides bulbultara. See how a wonderful humming precedes every charanam with SD keeping lullaby in mind ! Further, a touch of Bhimpalas does the magic. A more interesting feature about this song is that every time I listen to this song, I am reminded of many enchanting melodies that came years later …in the second charanam ending urimai ellam tharuvaar…….directly takes me to the interlude preceding yaanai padai kondu saenai pala vendru vaazha pirandhaayada …. (malarndhum malaradha-Pasamalar) and on listening to the opening lines of the first or third charanam , viz., mannil ulavum nilavey en vayittril udhitha kaniye or ezhai kaNda dhanamey manam ilaga cheyyum azhagey many a time invariably and inadvertently landed me in endha kuzhandhaiyum nalla kuzhandhaidhaan mannil pirakkayiley avar nallavar aavadhum theeyavar aavadhum annai valarppiniley …(indha pachaikkilikkoru – Needhikku thalai vanangu) . Must be a creative influence on other MDs.
The lyricist of this song is A. Marudhakasi. We remember Thiraikkavi thilagam Marudhakasi on his death anniversary today ( 29th November).
Kavignar Marudhakasi (1920-89) had his initial guidance and initiation into writing poetry by Papanasam Rajagopala Iyer and was much inspired by the works of Arunachala Kavirayar, author of Rama Natakam and Gopalakrishna Bharathi, author of Nandanar charithiram. In his early days, he had associated himself with several theatre groups alongwith Kavi K M Sheriff and when Tiruchy Loganathan was engaged as a music director for a play where Marudhakasi wrote the lyrics for his tunes TL was so fascinated by the content that he sang the lines before that great composer G.Ramanathan during a recording for a Modern Theatres film. When Modern Theatres Sundaram heard the song he was also so impressed and immediately summoned Marudhakasi and thus Marudhakasi wrote his first film song under GR for Maayaavathi (1949) which opens with Pennennum maayappeyaam poi maadharai en manam naaduvaeno. Subsequently, with the whole-hearted support and encouragement by Udumalai Narayana Kavi , Marudhakasi went on to write lyrics in every film that was released in the 1950s and became the busiest and most sought after lyricist of that decade. He was engaged as aasthaana kavignar of Modern Theatres in the 50s. Rightly at the end of the decade, Kudandhai Vani Vilasa Sabha conferred on him the award Thiraikkavi thilagam. Marudhakasi was an adept in composing lyrics for pre-set tunes and this skill made him most sought after whenever Hindi songs were dubbed by our MDs. This skill understandably Udumalai Narayana Kavi lacked and so he recommended Marudhakasi whenever such situations arose and thus Marudhakasi became a hot favourite of Modern Theatres banner in the 50s.
My admiration for Marudhakasi grew multifold when I understood that he was an uncrowned king of lullabies (Thirai thaalaattu thilagam?). Below I give a list of some of the most popular lullabies of yesteryears penned by Marudhakasi:
Neela vanna kanna vaada – Mangaiyar Thilagam/S Dakshinamurthy/R.Balasaraswathy
Thandhai yaaro thaayum yaaro – Yaar Paiyan/ T Chalapathy Rao- S.Dakshinamurthy/PS
Ejamaan pettra selvamey – Alli pettra pillai/K V Mahadevan/G Ramanathan
China pappa enga chellapappa – Vannakkili/K V Mahadevan/PS
Kuzhandhaiyum deivamum kondaadum – Vannakkili/K V Mahadevan/PS
Nee siricha naan sirippaen - Paavai vilakku/K V Mahadevan/Soolamangalam Rajalakshmi
Muthe pavalame..Aalapirandha en kannmaniye– Uthamaputhiran/G.Ramanathan/
R Balasaraswathy,A P Komala
Yellorum unnai nallavan endrey – Bhagyavathy/S Dakshinamurthy/PS
Chinna chinna roja - Azaghu Nila/ K V Mahadevan/PBS
Thaayaakki vachcha en – Rowdy Rakkamma/ Shankar-Ganesh/VJ
The lines in all the songs are very simple but still evocative in appeal and fortunately had good music composers. As he wrote these songs only for films probably he could not get that coveted title Kuzhandhai kavignar. The lyrics are filled with motherly affection - enjoying the motherhood, relishing the pranks and prattles of the child with words of courage, cheer and encouragement. One more addition can be made to the above list though cannot snugly fit in thaalaattu but a miss-not superhit Konji konji paesi madhi mayakkum (Kaidhi Kannaayiram/KVM/PS).
Marudhakasi was instrumental in introducing TMS to Sivaji in Thookku Thookki which duo later created history which is unparalleled in the annals of tfm.
That A P Nagarajan-Marudhakasi-KVM combination also gave us many immortal songs during this decade is noteworthy- the films Naalvar, Mangalyam, Nalla idathu sammandham, Sampoorna Ramayanam, Makkalai pettra magarasi, Neelavukku neranja manasu and Alli pettra pillai had some of the best compositions. The Thirai isai thilagam and Thiraikkavi thilagam collaboration has worked wonders as can be seen from their songs. The last film in the list , Alli pettra pillai was produced by Marudhakasi himself and the only highlight of the film is that Marudhakasi had persuaded G Ramanathan to sing a song and thus was born Ejamaan pettra selvamey.
As we know, since 60s belonged to that redoubtable poet Kannadasan, Marudhakasi could not make his presence felt much. Chinnappa Devar and K S Gopalakrishnan gave Marudhakasi some opportunities in the 70s and many songs of Devar-Marudhakasi-Shankar Ganesh and KSG-Marudhakasi-Shankar Ganesh combinations became hits. Songs of Vellikkizhamai Viradham and PalAbhishegam, to quote a few, stand testimony to this.
Though Marudhakasi is said to have written over 4500 songs for films in various genres, I am restricting this write-up only to his lullabies as our SOTD is a lilting lullaby.
Despite being highly talented and considered numero uno in the 50s, I still feel Marudhakasi is an underrated lyricist and worse, most of his compositions are even wrongly credited to other more popular lyricists. Sadly, he did not get the recognition he deserved.
PangAligaL(1961) was produced by Irish Films and the film starred Gemini Ganesan, Saroja Devi, Anjali Devi and M R Radha. Story and dialogues were by M S Solaimalai and was directed by
G Ramakrishnan, an assistant to doyen L V Prasad and worked as associate director in Mangaiyar Thilagam. SOTD is filmed on Anjali Devi.
There is a Tiruchy Loganathan version of this song which M R Radha sings in the film.
Music composer S. Dakshinamurthy is still alive and lives in Kotturpuram, Chennai with his son Susarla Hari. When we gave a programme in April 2005 at Dakshinamurthy auditorium, P S High School, Mylapore, Chennai titled Pazhasu pazhasudhan his family so graciously brought the aged music composer on our invitation to the programme and stayed till the end. We cherish the memories.
Tags: P.Suseela
- A Dhinathanthi article series on Maruthakasi: http://bsubra.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/ ... nathanthi/