25. ENGIRUNTHO AZHAIKKUM EN GEETHAM

[Manisekaran]

25. ENGIRUNTHO AZHAIKKUM EN GEETHAM
Here is a story of the taste for film music taking a diametrically opposite stand- thanks to the coming of Raja. We have seen that as afar as possible Raja had tried to avoid copying from earlier tunes. The one other area that Raja deliberately avoided was copying from Hindi tunes. When Raja came to the industry, there was a craze to copy Hindi tunes into Tamil songs. Raja was of the strong opinion that Tamil songs should have their separate natural identity or MAN VAASANAI. He felt there was much to be experimented in the Tamil songs. The Tamil language was already being adulterated with so much foreign words, and Raja had no control over that. But he was pretty confident that he could impose upon an area where he could dictate terms. He did this in composing the songs, many times on pure carnatic Ragas. As Raja was churing out excellent songs year in and year out, the cine song fans had more and more of the Tamil tunes to taste, and the craze for Hindi tunes were completely driven into oblivion. By the first few years, Hindi tunes were chased beyond the borders of Tamilnaadu. The Hindi craze was completely substituted with Raja’s tunes.


As far as possible the Mumbai producers and MDs had all along avoided copying tunes from Tamil songs. However, Raja’s influence was simply too tempting I suppose. After struggling hard to falling into the trap of Raja’s music, they finally succumbed and conceded total defeat. Hindi singers yearned to sing under Raja. Both Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle were desiring to sing under Raja’s music. It was Asha who sang first. One could remember SHENBAGAME SHENBAGAME by Asha in ENGA OOR PAATTUKKARAN. Then came Lata in ENGIRUNHTO AZHAIKKUM EN GEETHAM in EN JEEVAN PAADUTHU.

Raja’s music drew attention from the Hindi composers. Rakkamma Kaiyai Thattu was one song that was copied from Raja. One would remember BBC selected that song from among 166 countries under the heading of Song of the Planet. The news dated 21 November 2002 says “Tamil track heads song poll. A Tamil song is currently in the lead in a poll to find the most popular tune in the world, beating tracks by the Beatles, Queen and Led Zeppelin. The song, Rakkama Kaiya Thattu, features in Indian film Thalapathi, made in 1991. It was written by a film lyricist called Valee and the music composed by Ilayaraja. Its leading position indicates the fact that India has so far submitted the most votes in the BBC World Service poll on its website.”


Within a span of just 15 years the Hindi film industry copied Raja’s songs. Chinnathamby songs were also copied later.

In 1999 the Madhya Pradesh government conferred upon Raja the LATA MANGESHKAR AWARD for his achievement in music.

The great Hindi composer Naushad Ali, whom I met personally in the Mumbai Holiday Inn Hotel in December 2001 had many nice things to say about Raja. He had earlier made a public statement as follows: “ What this man has achieved is 100 times more than what any of us have achieved; only time can tell the quantum of his achievements”

Coming from Naushad Ali, which is the best accolade anyone can give on Raja. That was the barometer to gauge the superb musical mind of Raja. I consider that the best award Raja could have received from the Doyen of Hindi Film Music.

I personally consider ENGIRUNTHO AZHAIKKUM the best of all songs sung by northerners in Raja’s music. This may not be a landmark song, but I have marked it as one that, to my taste happens to be the very best, sung by northerners. The orchestration is most uplifting to the soul. Hindi songs, almost always used violins to enhance the melody. Here Raja too has used violin in most effective and moving way. But we do see raja excelling in the background and orchestration.

The talent quest winner tried her best to sing out this song. It was recorded, and finally omitted, as she was no close to Lata’s performance.

Listen to it: http://tfmpage.com/cgi-bin/song.pl?id=mani-25.1

I am sure readers have much to agree and disagree on this subject. Let us have the views.