The Golden Era of Dr.IR and Dr.SPB

[tvsankar]

80s Ilaiyaraja paatu vaithal, en 20 vayasu paiyan solvan..
"amma , indha paatu elalm pona jenmathil epavo kaeta madhiir iruku nu.."
kaaranam.. avan LKG to 5th std varai pona school bus il, paadina paatu adhu elllam... hahaha.

Enga age karanga irukravarai.. RAja songs indha ulagathil suthitu than irukum...................... adhu nichayam....

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Welcome back, Usha Chechi!

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You have brought a very important point here... we all want to identify or highlight just "our" people. In youtube many Malayalam songs are simply highlighting KJY, Telugu songs highlighting SPB, Kannada songs highlighting Rajkumar and Tamil songs highlighting IR or ARR. If you read the comments for those songs.. you can see more than 70% folks are again talking about the greatness of KJY in Malayalam, SPB in Telugu, etc. etc.,

I think it is just human nature.

However, LM wasn't a malayALi

Likewise, there weren't pictures of Raveendran master (or such genius composers of prior era)...

This 'namma ALu' business had never been applicable to TN, as can be seen by the all-time #1 idol there, ippOkkooda kaNNa moodikkittu retta ilaikku vote pOdaRavanga irukkAnga

I strongly feel the IR pictures correpond to the focus he brought in TN to the role of MD and it definitely had nothing to do with his TN origins.

Interestingly, the four most popular composers of TFM had some closeness / connection to Kerala (KVM is from Kumari district, close to Kerala and there're people in Nagerkoil who feel they should have been part of Kerala & follow 'nAnjil nAttu marumakkaL vazhi mAnmiyam' culture ; MSV's home village, elappuLLi / pArA, is between Pollachi & Palakkad and could have been part of Madras state prior to independence but now part of Kerala; IR's home place is close to the border and his brother's communist roots / roaming around in Kerala is quite noteworthy with rAsA being a part of that team; ARR's dad was a MFM composer)...

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baroque, V_Sji, rajaramsgi,

nanRi for your comments!

I'm behind by 2 days and will need to post 3 songs today...

[al_gates]

Being in 0'th floor, which is in the same level as the beautiful lake gives such a panoramic view of the woods & a lone building on the other side of the lake. Preparing for the winter (possibly for the long flights ahead), there are 100's of geese / swans on the surface of the lake, practically non-moving like sculptures and making the whole view look like an oil painting. With daylight yet to arrive in full, this partly-dark scene is an artwork of class - better than what any master artist had ever painted!

Post the pic...or else it did not happen

Looks like I am the only guy who never got into trouble with any conductor.
Secret of that is if I did not have correct change, I walked to my destination.

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al_gates

It was captured using the most valuable camera and stored in the brain memory Not accessible to other class of CPUs...

BTW, your post gave me another opportunity to go to the window this afternoon and look at the birds - all 100's of them swimming on the lake on a bright sunny day of temp in the 40's (F)...Some day I'll take a pic and post on a blog...

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#203 என் அன்பே அன்பே என் மனம் உன் வசம்
(உன்னைத்தேடி வருவேன், 1985 , ஜானகியுடன்)

Another Sridhar movie that came and gone during the final year of college. I clearly remember watching this movie in the Ramba / Oorvasi complex near Kaveri river in Trichy but can't recall any storyline. Suresh was the hero and I think there was a song with him in shorts on the beach. That's about the only thing I remember about the movie apart from this nice song and the sweet 'oru nALil' song (SJ with Ramesh).

This song is a guitar sweetie with IR's signature rhythm. The prelude could potentially confuse us with a later day song by the same pair (adhikAlai, subha vELai). Yes, both songs share the rhythm arrangement as well. However, this was the first to come and no question about the musical ears of Sridhar It had its radio / bus / teakkadai time disregarding the movie's fate.

At best, I recall some study-holidays with this song. Well, I need to record about 2 important things of the campus in this thread before we jump to next year, the first one in this post and the second in the next post.

Though we had the kaLLichchottu tea at 3 PM in the mess (never missed to go on time, especially in the study hols - after playing carrom for hours), there wasn't any snack served ever. So, on some days some seriously-studying wingmates used to feel "brain-tired" and ask for company to walk to cafeteria. Though my study days were typically only 15 - exactly 15 - per semester and not too much serious study anyways, for enjoying the company and the walk I used to be part of the gang going to cafe.

Well, there was another tasty reason too.

Though none of us ever liked anything in the cafe, there was just one exception and it wasn't available at all times and all days. Just some evenings and it was hit / miss. Still, worth trying for the fantastic taste (mouth waters as I write). The onion bajji hA! The thin sliced round onion covered with the not-so-thick coating of kadalai mAvu deep fried, with that orange brown color (possibly kEsari powder added), served hot - the money (or the previously bought coupon books) in our packets were the only limiting factor for the quantity we could have of that delicacy! Greatly thrilled with the taste but never feeling filled we used to leave the cafe! (This dish is one of my regular "nachcharippu" at home as well).

Borrowing from an old poet (who praised pAri vaLLal), there are a few other tasty things besides rAsA songs in the world too

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The guitar / synth special ENdiyammA from this movie didn't get much popularity as per my memory. Same was the case with the trumpet delight valiya vantha vanithAmaNi .

I don't know how these IR / SPB specials from a Sridhar movie went without much notice...excess production by IR must be one explanation...

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I want to finish 1985 with Idhayakkovil as I recognize listening to the film's songs mostly only in the next year and I can't associate any campus memory with those songs at all. So, looking around for other movies during this year brings some names from thiraippAdal which are incorrect IMO.

For e.g. Vikram is listed as 1985. No way. I remember seeing trailer of this at Geethalaya theater near Cbe bus stand in 1986. Possibly the album came in 1985 but the movie a clear 1986-er.

Though I have the same doubt for the Jappanil KR movie, since that doesn't associate any personal memory anyways, I'll go ahead documenting the SPB songs in that in the coming posts and do some blA-blA about campus thingies...

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#204 வாய்யா வாய்யா போய்யா போய்யா
(ஜப்பானில் கல்யாணராமன், 1985 )

Interesting song for Panju's movie where SPB sings in a different voice - but unfortunately fails to impress like MV in the case of the original KR's 'AhA vandhuruchchu'. I love the melody change for 'vEtti varinju kattu' which is definitely catchier than the first line. This song did enjoy some popularity in radio and elsewhere but I cannot recall whether any of my associates feverishly went to recording centers to record it Though limited, whatever popularity the song got had everything to do with Kamal and not otherwise IMO.

I cannot understand why IR / Panju / Kamal / Director chose not to have MV in this album at all when they had such a big success with him in the original KR. It's fine if they had to use SPB for the modern Kamal who romances Radha but what about the pallu Kamal? One of those puriyAdha puthir questions

Well, jumping back to my campus stuff, I need to mention the second thing - rather second "set of delicacies" in this post. These again prompted walks from hostel, classes, playgrounds etc direct to the shopping area of the campus where the Juice Center was located And this was available late at night as well and it wasn't uncommon to pay a visit after 9.

Mess never went beyond lime juice or Kissan Orange Squash typically. Even during the "feast" days, the max they offered was a grape juice. (We used to grab the emptied kissan bottles for our room water supplies as mineral water / PET bottle business was still not a big thing yet). In addition, there was never any "fruits" part of the menu. (One thing that I missed during hostel days was the seemingly-unlimited supply of mangoes that we had at home during summer, being in a village, or the extremely tasty fruits from siRumalai that were available plenty those days in the town market - bananas, jack fruit, pineapple - name anything, the siRumalai version was the tastiest in the world for me, like siRuvANi water for Cbe fellows).

So, the solution at campus was the juice shop which was phenomenally economical, accepted "tokens" that could be bought in the hostel office (and show up in the mess bill, so no need to spend cash). We never had a taste for typical bottle drinks (remember no Coke in India those days) except Parnar mango and Aavin flavoured milk. (Oh, once again reminded of the Aavin milk price thingy going on in TN at present).

So, while we treated ourselves with all kinds of fresh, mixie-d fruit juices from that place, the shop keeper developed his own versions of treats well. He mixed the flavoured milk with juices and created "shake" versions that were very popular.

So, like the hot vengAyA bajji, the other set of items on the top of our list were the ice-chilly grape-shake and banana-shake from the cafe