The past week has seen the passing away of brilliant artistes who left before their time. With the entertainment space in media increasingly becoming an obituaries section, how does one come to terms with Na Muthukumar's moving on?
One can celebrate the passing away of veteran talents who have left behind a great legacy, but how does one accept dying of jaundice at a mere age of 41? Na Muthukumar had all the bearings of a writer, poet and thinker (serious, short smile, soft spoken and courteous) and led the pack of poets who began their rise from 2002.
He was also the fastest to gain popularity among the new crop of directors then, like Dharani, Bala, Murugadas, Lingusamy, Selvaraghavan, Raam, AL Vijay. He worked with Gautham Menon much later in Vaaranam Aayiram (for just one song Yethi Yethi Yethi) and then penned all the songs to Ilayaraaja’s tunes in Neethaaney Yenn Ponnvasantham.
If there is one song that made Surya’s Ghajini look popular it is ‘suttum vizhi sudarey’ that has Bombay Jayashree’s melting voice render “mazhai azhagaa veyil azhagaa, konjum bothu mazhai azhagu, kanaa nee kovapattaal veyil azhagu” (Which is more beautiful? Rain or sunshine? When you display fondness it is rain my dear, when you’re miffed it is sunshine). Lingusamy and Selvaraghavan had the wonderful combination of Yuvan Shankar Raja and Na Muthukumar spin out hit numbers for their movies.
Take the wonderously soulful ‘pogathey...pogathey’ from Lingusamy’s Deepavali that has Yuvan sing from his heart, this line “kallaraiyilkooda jannal ondru vaithu undhan mugam paarppeanadi” (even in my grave I will have a window from where I will see your face).
Selvaraghavan also drew the best from the Yuvan-Muthukumar combination that came to the fore in 7G Rainbow colony. “Kann pesum vaarthaigal therivadhillai” had Karthik (who has sung the maximum songs of Na Muthukumar) render the lines “oru mugam theriya maru mugam maraiya kannaadi idhayam illai” (for one face to show up and the other face to appear, the heart is not a mirror). The same film has this iconic number ‘ninaithu ninaithu paarthean’, sung by KK and Sadhana Sargam in different versions. Raam’s Thangameengal brought the first national award for Muthukumar for ‘Anandha Yazhai meetugiraay’, in Yuvan’s music.
Muthukumar also wrote dialogues for AL Vijay’s debut film Kireedom, and their association crossed many films with GV Prakash’s music, and fetched Muthukumar his second national award was for Azhage Azhagu from Saivam.
Strong friendships and associations with directors and music directors were Muthukumar’s strengths. He was comfortable with fun songs (Vaanganna Vanakkanganaa in Thalaivaa) and with English lyrics (Nee Marilyn Monroe cloningaa from Azhagiya Thamizhmagan tuned by A R Rahman). Na Muthukumar’s career hit a new high when he replaced Vairamuthu to pen the historic opening song in Shankar’s Shivaji for superstar Rajnikanth. The song was Balleilakka and the pace left little room for great meaning yet Muthukumar filled it with key elements from each area of Tamilnadu and made it his own.
He was among the fastest poets to pen a verse, and now, he is among the youngest to have gone away too soon.
(The writer is a columnist with The New Indian Express)