KOCHI: When M G Sreekumar’s father, musician Malabar Gopalan Nair, fell on hard times he moved the family moved from Haripad to Thiruvananthapuram so that his children could get better opportunities.
As a child Sreekumar studied in Model School.
During lunch break, ice cream sticks were sold at 5 paise. “When other children bought them I used to stand and stare. I would ask my well-to-do friends to buy me a stick.” Sometimes they obliged; sometimes they ignored him.
Sreekumar had a classmate called Priyadarshan. With him he caught small fish from lakes, put them inside Horlicks bottles and sold them for 5 or 10 paise. Once they managed to pass water through a pen and made a small fountain. “We held a sale in our houses and charged an entrance fee,” says Sreekumar. With the money they earned - Rs 2 or 3 - they watched films. Sreekumar’s brother, accomplished classical singer and music director M G Radhakrishnan, older than him by 18 years, used to take him for concerts. The youngster’s job was to spread the sheets on the stage and play the tanpura.
Sreekumar was paid Rs 5 for each prog r a m m e.
“At that time, my biggest desire was to eat porotta and mutton from a hotel in Kollam.” Radhakrishnan always obliged. Sreekumar performed with Radhakrishnan on over a thousand stages in many temples in Kerala for a period of 14 years.
It was only in Class X that he began formal music training from Cherthala Gopalan Nair and later from Neyyattinkara Vasudevan.
“But my biggest guru is my brother.” Music came naturally to Sreekumar. “The moment I heard a raga I knew the tune. This knowledge was a gift from God.” Sreekumar passed with a first class in B.Com in 1977 and spent two years working as an accountant in Libya. “It was very dull.
There were no cultural activities.” He returned in 1981, got a job in State Bank of Travancore and began singing in ganamelas with other groups. He was paid Rs 10 for a song. It was in 1983 that he got an opportunity to sing in a film, ‘Coolie’, directed by Ashok Kumar. Thereafter, he sang for another 15 films but none of the songs created an impact. Sreekumar’s turning point came when Priyadarshan asked him to sing three songs for his film ‘Chithram’ in 1988. The other three songs were meant for K J Yesudas but he could not find the time. “So I got the opportunity to sing all the songs!” The film became a superhit and ran f o r 366 days. The catchy songs were composed by Kannur Rajan. Sreekumar was paid Rs 26,000. “It was the first time I earned such a large sum of money.” He bought a second-hand Ambassador car which is still with him. His career took off and Sreekumar sang numerous hits in films like ‘His Highness Abdullah’, ‘Vandanam’, ‘Thenkasipattanam’, ‘Thenmavan Kombathu’, ‘Kilukkam’ and ‘Kiridom’. He has sung over 3000 songs in Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu and won numerous awards.
Another turning point came in 1994 when he went to Chennai for the recording of ‘Ramji Rao Speaking’. At the airport he met Shashi Kumar who was the owner of Asianet. At that time Asianet had been on air for six months.
He asked Shashi whether he could do a musical programme on the channel. Shashi said he would give a response later. After a month, an official from Asianet met Sreekumar and suggested a project similar to the present-day Star Singer but at that time it was called ‘Voice Of The Week’. Sreekumar has been appearing regularly on TV for the past 15 years and now anchors the ‘Sarigama Padhanisa’ that is telecast on Sunday evening. “I don’t prepare before the show. I try to be as natural as possibl e but I improvise.” It was in 1994 that he met Lekha, who later became his wife, during a concert in Los Angeles.
She was holidaying in the United States with her parents. “It was instant attraction,” he says. The families were against the marriage.
So the couple lived together for six years and eventually got married in 2000 at the Mookambika Temple in Kollur, Karnataka.
“Lekha changed me. When you become a famous singer people praise you all the time. But she knows how to critically analyse my singing. Moreover she looks after me well. For an artist to perform well he needs to be at peace.
Thanks to Lekha I am relaxed even on the day I have to give a performance.” Asked to explain his philosophy of life, Sreekumar looks out of the window of his plush apartment at Abad Marine Plaza. Then he says, “There is a force in the universe.
Whether it is defined as Hindu, Muslim or Christian, this power controls every living thing on earth including my life which has been a lucky and blessed one.” (This weekly column traces the turning points that make or mar a person’s life)
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