The pains that Ravi Menon has taken to set right some of the lesser known musical facts of Malayalam cinema can only be reflective of a deep-seated passion. It would be farfetched to imagine that a researcher’s tenacity could set someone on such an arduous trail of long-faded melodies and the tales that rest in their rising and falling octaves.
‘Nakshathra Deepangal’ yodels through the lives of celebrated musicians, singers, lyricists, the one-time wonders and the unsung. The author, while letting readers in on the details of revelatory conversations, supplements them with ample biographic details to sketch a caricature of people who have contributed their fair share to the film music genre of Malayalam.
There are many little-known tales that can surprise the music lovers and film buffs alike. The genesis of the superhit song ‘Nakshathra deepangal thilangi...’, which also lends the book its beautiful title, is one such. The very fact that it was set to tune by the Jaya-Vijaya duo and not Dakshinamoorthy, as believed by many, is revelatory.
Says Jayan, the brother who still composes songs in the name of ‘Jaya-Vijaya’ in memory of his departed sibling, “It was the early seventies and we were based in Madras pursuing a career in Carnatic music. One morning, lyricist Bichu Thirumala, a tinseltown-aspirant in those days, came on one of his casual visits to Murudi’s lodge, our camp in Mylapore. He left his diary in the room and went to pray at the nearby Kapaleeswara temple. We flipped through the pages of the diary and were surprised to find a poem that had references to our Guru Chembai Vaidayanathan and violin maestro Choudayya. We set it to music then and there and when Bichu returned, we sang it to him. Tears rolled down his face and he asked, ‘only this can be the tune I heard in my mind while penning it, how did you find out?’
Restoration of often-misappropriated ownerships also make this a meta-narrative of documentary value. The lyrics of the superhit song ‘Puliyila karayolum...’ rightfully attached to the name of Somasekharan Nair, a lab technician in Mavelikkara, and the male voice in the beginning of the song ‘Devadundubhi...’ to that of singer Satheeshbabu are examples.
The book has a chapter dedicated to the handful of women lyricists in Malayalam cinema. The conversation with Sasikala Menon, one of the youngest writers to have ever entered the industry, is engaging. She had a hit to her credit with the debut song ‘Yadukula Madhava’ set to tune by A T Ummer for the movie ‘Sindhooram’. The chapter then chronicles the brief visits made by other women poets, including Sugatha Kumari and O V Usha. Though it stops short of details about other little known lyricists such as Professor Mariyamma Philip, Mavelikkara Devamma, Sumangala and Chitralekha, the chapter is an eye-opener and documents the small but significant women presence in a field that has strangely remained a male bastion at all times.
Ravi Menon has also attempted to place songs in their historical context, illustrating the fact that music is an expression of the sensibilities of a period, much like art and literature. Of Devarajan Master’s style of composing, he writes, “The guiding principle he followed was not to mar the poem with the tune”.
Menon credits M G Radhakrishnan with the inheritance of this style among the next generation of musicians. As a befitting illustration, he cites ‘Oru Dalam Mathram...’ a song penned by ONV Kurup and sung by K J Yesudas for the movie ‘Jalakam’. Just as the author describes these compositions - “a soft caressing of the words with the music”, - ‘Nakshathra Deepangal’ comes across as a joyful ride on a wave of lilting strains of sweet melodies.
