CHENNAI: As little children, when we couldn’t remember something, we were taught to assign a tune to it to make it easy to remember. Eleven singers from the city’s music fraternity have perhaps taken a tip from that to come together to sing an ‘Educate a Child’ themed song that is set to be launched next week.
Says Aravind J, founder of the not-for-profit organisation Raindropss, who initiated the concept, “This is our first song for the cause of education. Previously we had songs focusing on other themes like eye donation and World Disability Day.”
The response to the idea has been quite overwhelming for Aravind and composer Girinandh who got the recording process in motion. Girinandh elaborates, “Everybody wanted to contribute. There were actually 20 singers all geared up to be part of this project, but we decided that too many voices might undo the charm of the song.” And with the likes of big playback singers like A R Reihana, Srinivas, Priya Hemesh, V V Prasanna, M L R Karthikeyan and Saindhavi, quality was never an issue. Also on the song are the voices of young and upcoming singers Suchith, Sakthi, Super Singer winner Nikhil Mathew and newcomer Maalvika Manoj (who featured in the Sachin anthem). When it takes an entire paragraph to introduce the names of singers in a single composition, you can be sure of the success of it even even before it hits the airwaves of media partner Big FM. The inspiring lyrics by Niranjan Bharathi, who is the great-grandson of poet Bharathiyar, add the icing on the cake.
And it seems Girinandh has chosen the right musicians for the job, as several of them already contribute to the cause in one way or another. Says Reihana, “This issue has been close to my heart for a long time.” She recalls, “My maid servant in fact has a brilliant son whom she was about to take out of college because they couldn’t afford it.” As one can imagine, this story has a happy ending. With a little bit of help with funding, he completed his education and now draws a salary of `15,000. The film composer smiles, “Once he got his first salary, he even asked his mother to stop working.”
With the song ready and a video being shot for Youtube, the hope is that the message will spread as far as possible. The organisers have planned to play the song in corporation schools in the city as well as in colleges and corporates. “I really hope that this song gets played in more rural areas and in village buses,” states singer Prasanna. As 24-year-old Suchith points out, it’s always better to listen to a song than hear a speech. He sums up, “It’s okay if people don’t remember the words, even if they just hum the tune, there’s hope.”