THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Legends never die. They are remembered for their greatest works, for their timeless contributions that have benefited mankind. Devarajan Master, whose ever-green compositions have left a mark in many an Indian’s minds continues to live in people’s hearts. And on March 14, music aficionados and members of the D Devarajan Master Memorial Trust take a walk down the memory lane and remembers the music director and the impact he had on them.
“Devarajan proved awards are not the criteria to assess talent. He did not win any national award but won the heart of every Malayali,” said lyricist Sreekumaran Thampi who has associated with Devarajan in 36 films. “He directed 220 songs for me,” he said.
He says he worked with the music composer for the first time in the film ‘Chithramela’ in 1967. Chithramela is malayalam cinema’s first anthology film. It consisted of three short films. The longest segment ‘Apaswarangal’ was written by Sreekumaran Thampi. It revolves around the story of a street singer. I was particular about selecting Devarajan for the music direction and he composed eight songs for the movie. He did the music direction in the most befitting way,” remembers Sreekumaran Thampi.
According to him, it was diversity which was the USP of Devarajan’s songs. “He didn’t confine himself to one type of music but experimented with several genres including classical, semi-classical, folk and western songs,” said Thampi.
For Satheesh Ramachandran, who worked under Devarajan for nine years, Devarajan was more than a teacher. He remembers how the master had selected him to sing in front of his friends. “Sir had difficulties singing because he was suffering from a sore throat. He just called me and handed over the harmonium and stand and told me to start singing,” Satheesh said.
According to him, he encouraged youngsters to explore their full potential. “This is very evident in ‘Sakthigadha Choir’ and his book ‘Sangeetha Shastra Nava Sudha’,” Satheesh said. “He had confidence in me and suggested young music enthusiasts to train under me including singer Vidhu Prathap,” he said. In order to commemorate Devarajan Master on his 13th death anniversary, G Devarajan Memorial Trust and Bharat Bhavan are jointly organising a day-long commemoration titled ‘Devaraganganam’ at Bharat Bhavan on Thursday at 5.30 pm.
Devarajan master’s students, friends and colleges including Sreekumaran Thampi, Swami Gururethnam Jnana Thapaswi, Prabha Varma, Poovachal Khader, T P Sasthamangalam, M Rasheed, Pramod Payyannur, E Jayakrishnan and Krishna Kumar will participate in the programme. Also, a performance by ‘Sakthigadha Choir’ lead by Satheesh Ramacharan will be held during the commemoration.