KOCHI: At a time when technology is pushing the frontiers of music, the humble gramophone records from a rather distant past may be looked down upon. But not if one runs into T Y Rajeevan, a music aficionado residing at Thoppumpady here. A retired government employee, he owns an astounding private collection of more than 3,500 gramophone records which feature all the timeless songs including the hard-to-find ‘Manoharamee rajyam’ from the 1950 release ‘Nalla Thanka’. Augustine Joseph, father of singing legend K J Yesudas, was the singer.
“During childhood, there was a gramophone in our house (the one embossed with the distinctive HMV- His Master’s Voice - logo). After passing out of St Sebastian High School, I reminisced about the gramophone days. By then, cassette players had taken over. By 1984-85, after completing my Bachelor’s degree from Maharaja’s College, I thought of collecting gramophone records,” said Rajeevan.He said he had travelled extensively within the state as well as outside to build the collection.
“ I have visited several places both within and outside the state. In the 1980s, gramophone records were available in some houses. A majority of the households gave them away for free since the records had been gathering dust due to disuse. I even picked up some records from scrap stores and light and sound stores. Some charged a price anywhere between `100 to `500,” he said.
The collection also includes those sung by the late actor Jose Prakash before he entered movies, songs by the late Zero Babu and rare songs from some of the popular dramas in the 1950s. Interestingly, K J Yesudas had sung most of these songs. “My collection also includes two songs written by Vayalar Rama Varma for FACT. The songs ‘Puncha Vayal Pennin’ and ‘Njattu Vela’, for which music was scored by M B Sreenivasan, are songs which most of the people from our generation may not have even heard of,” he said.
Rajeevan has got himself state-of-the-art record players to play the gramophone records. “It is an immersive experience to listen to songs from a gramophone record. Just close your eyes and you can feel as though the singer is standing right next to you. The listener feels as if he/she is seated inside a recording studio,” he added.
Some of the evergreen numbers from Bollywood sung by Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh and Talat Mahmood feature in the collection. Rajeevan retired from Tripunithura AE office in 2018. His wife Preethi is working at the Kochi Taluk Office while his two sons are in college.