A group of young boys, the unsung talent from the slums of North Chennai, have come up with a Tamil album song titled Area Pasanga, to rekindle the spirit of locals here who have lost everything to the heartless deluge. And the USP is that the entire song sequence has been shot in the slums of Vyasarpadi.
The Lyrics for the song were penned by Logan, who has also written lyrics for more than 40 Tamil movies including Sillata Pillata song in Kanchana-Part-II (2015). City Express caught up with Logan for a quick chat:
“Here, people lost everything. Most families gave up celebrating Christmas because they have nothing to cheer about. We wanted to make them happy on the occasion,” he explained. “After we composed the song, we shot the sequences on the streets here. We even made many of them dance with us.”
K Surendran, a graduate in fine arts, smiled at the memory and added, “To our surprise, even women and children began dancing to the beat. As this part of the slum is neglected, nobody here was given psychological counselling. That’s why we joined together to lift the spirits of the community.”
The group has planned to release their album song before New Year’s Day and has posted the trailer of the album on YouTube. “When Logan planned the theme, we started painting the walls in the slums to shoot the song. We wanted to give a colourful background to the audience,” said Manimaran, a painting artist at a slum in Kalyanapuram.
Manasa, the dancer from Maanada Mayilada, danced with the local boys for the song, which was choreographed by M Murali and edited by K Vignesh, a visual communications student from the slum.