Music And Movies

(Kalinga Rao) When I had sent him the link to my blog post about Rajkumar's wonderful 'Jeevana Chaitra' song, my friend Kiran replied back with a suggestion of his own for a future post. It was P.Kalinga Rao's singing of Mysore Narasimhaswamy's 'anthintha heenu nee nilla'.  I first heard Kalinga Rao in the tape titled 'Doni Saagali'. As I had stated in an old post, this tape had songs which were based on famous poems of great poets like Kuvempu, Da Ra Bendre, DVG etc. In this list of poets there were poems of Mysore Narasimhaswamy which were tuned as film songs. Mysore Narasimhaswamy's most famous poems collection is 'Mysore Mallige'. Given that these were love poems, is it any surprise that our film directors wanted these to be tuned for movies? That tape also had another Narasimhaswamy song sung by P B Sreenivas, 'avalu yaaru'. Another nice melody. P Kalinga Rao was the only unknown name in that album. So I checked with my r...

'kodai kaala katre, kulir thendral paadum paate', thus goes one of the famous songs from the movie, 'Paneer Pushpangal' sung by Malaysia Vasudevan. The phrase 'kodai kaala katre' means 'summer breeze' and that was an apt description for some of the melodies that Malaysia Vasudevan sung. Malaysia Vasudevan's voice was not the soothing kind, a 'cool' and 'gentle' voice. He did not possess the softness of Balasubramaniam nor did his voice possess an inherent melody like Jesudas. His was a rough voice, a 'manly' voice. If the other male singers like SPB and Jesudas represented spring and winter, Malaysia represented summer. His was a voice which blazed into your ears and burnt itself into your conscience. You either loved it or hated it on the first hearing. To be honest, it was the second feeling that came over many during his initial days. He sounded like a poor copy of C.S.Jayaraman or as a poor man's T.M.Soundararajan. ...

(Komal Gandhar) Late one night I was watching Ritwik Ghatak's movie, 'Komal Gandhar'. Probably the only 'light' movie in Ghatak's oeuvre. The songs which happened till then were good and that was expected in a Ghatak movie. His sense of music is impeccable. Then this song happened, which left  a deeper impact than the other songs. It was a stunning discovery. (Buddha gained knowledge sitting under the bhodi tree. For me it has almost always been sitting in front of the TV late in night after everyone has gone to sleep.) A drama troupe is in some forest type of area and a few of them clapping hands start singing a folk song. Just as they sing a line, their song is interrupted by a female voice cutting through the night. And it cut itself a place in my heart. An absolutely minimal orchestration accompanies the song. The song is carried purely by the tune and the voice which delivers the tune. And what a tune it is. Dripping melody in every line, conveyin...

Some posts provoke lot of comments and some pass by without any comment. In case of R D Burman, I was sure lot of people would have lot to say, given that his music has impacted so many. My good friend Ravi Natarajan, mailed me asking if there was any limit on number of words that he could write in the comment section. When I replied that I didn't mind any length in the comment section, he came back by saying, "Why not I do a guest post on RDB". I was overjoyed and immediately took the offer. Ravi is a technologist based in Canada. He has a wonderful blog on Illayaraja wherein he discusses the intricacies of Raja's music. This is a well liked blog and is often referred to by all Illayaraja fans. Check out his Raja, The Genius blog  . (You can see it in my blog roll as well.)  Additionally Ravi, who is very influenced by writer Sujatha, writes about Technology in Solvanam . He also writes about India and Development Issues in Thinnai . Here is an article he wrote ...

It was early evening and Siva, Murthy and I, as usual, had gone to Gymkhana to listen to some songs. Someone played a song which transported me to my very early school days, transported me to a small lane in Boiguda, a sloping lane, a lane in which all houses had raised platforms. A lane where by 8 o clock all movement would cease and the soanpapdi-wala would ring the bell and bring along the flaky soan papdi in his huge bell shaped glass jar. Did you guess the song which transported me to this lane? Yes, you are wrong!! It was not 'Kanchi Re Kanchi Re' but another song from the same movie, 'phoolon ka taaron ka'. That made me think of 'Hare Rama Hare Krishna' days and automatically to the evening hours of Boiguda. Probably the earliest of my remembrances. I had a neighbour called Roop who was senior to most of us in the street and the unofficial gang leader. His elder brother and friends had a small music troupe which would practice in his house. We would all...