Jerry Amaldev, the maestro whose tunes live on in every Malayali’s nostalgia playlist, made his debut with Manjil Virinja Pookkal. In a quick chat, he shares with TNIE the story of how it all began.
“I used to think that without knowing western music, one couldn’t truly do music direction. Back then, most music directors simply took the lyrics and set a tune. Even now, very few handle every aspect of a song themselves. The final version we hear is often the work of many hands. I felt that was not right,” he says.
“I admired the great composers from the West, like Beethoven, who created every part of the composition themselves. I had this strong desire to work in cinema, but was clear that I would not allow anyone to interfere in my songs.”
Jerry went to the US and completed a master’s degree in composition. After returning to India, a relative mentioned to him that Navodaya Appachan was planning a new film, and he reached out.
“When I met him, Appachan told me, ‘My son (Jijo Punnoose) and Fazil are planning to make a film. They don’t want Prem Nazir or Sheela... they want newcomers. These boys don’t know a thing about cinema! Without Nazir or Sheela, who is going to watch? Just to keep them happy, I thought we would make a small film and get it over with.’ Then he asked if I would be willing to do the music.”
That moment led Amaldev into a room with the film’s young core team — Fazil, Jijo, Sibi Malayil, and Madhu Muttam. What followed was destiny.
“Each song in the film was created spontaneously in response to the junctures in the story,” he explains. “For example, they explained one scene where a young man is driving a jeep and hears a girl call from behind. I asked, ‘What kind of call? Like, eda Thomaacha?’
“Jijo said, ‘No, something more poetic maybe... like mukkuthippoove…’ So I hummed a tune to that word, which became the melody for Manjani Kombil (softly hums the tune). [Lyricist] Bichu Thirumala, who was sitting there, heard it and said, ‘Let’s drop ‘mukkuthippoove’... let’s go with something else. And that’s how Manjani Kombil was born.”
When asked about the track Mizhiyoram, Jerry recalls Fazil describing the scene: ‘The heroine is cleaning the garden, plucking flowers, dusting off spider webs, and tidying up the room. As she goes about her chores, she hums a tune softly....’
“That was the beginning of the song,” says Jerry. “The instrumentation was kept very minimal, just a touch of tabla, one guitar, a small rhythm section, and a flute. That was enough. After all, when a young woman hums to herself at home, there’s no need for the grandeur of a symphony orchestra.” He was told later that the same song would reappear in the other side of the story, sung by the protagonist . “So I expanded the original tune, arranged it for a 40-piece orchestra, and personally gave the music score to each section. Yesudas sang it beautifully, and the picturisation was also done very well. That’s the story behind the two versions of the song,” he adds.
Talking of cover versions of tracks from the film that have been trending of late, Jerry says he is “very happy that even today’s generation enjoys the music”.
“There’s no such thing as ‘old’ or ‘new’ music — only good or bad. That’s the only real distinction in art,” he concludes.