The Golden Era of Dr.IR and Dr.SPB

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#267 கீரவாணி இரவிலே
(பாடும் பறவைகள், 1988 , ஜானகியுடன்)

Extremely sweet number and SPB & SJ both simply excel in this number!

Being a rAgA ignorant / rAgA agnostic, I never knew before the name "keeravANi". So, the first time I heard this song on a bus (amidst other noises), my mind caught the first line as 'keezha vAnam'. Once it registers that way, it automatically plays back the same line each time - especially when you're paying attention to many other things happening in the song. So, it was 'keezha vAnam' for me until I got the cassette and I was confused to see it listed differently. When Vivek jokes about cinema educating people of the existence / names of various diseases (dhool), one cannot help but acknowledge the element of truth in it. Same way, during the rAsA era, movie songs are the primary key to educating common public about rAgams & this song happens to be one among them There's no question about the sweetness of keeravANi!

So, from the sweet rAgam, I'm moving into one sweet experience when walking along the agazhi of Palakkad kottai. Which is our feature #2 - national atheletes practicing around the fort

During my walks to catch the morning bus, I've often noticed girls & boys (atheletes) practicing along the same walkway around the fort (using that as their "track"). I thought they were some local atheletes, making use of the available space - a little raised over the surroundings so no collected-rain-water-sakadhi-kind-of-hassle etc. I often noticed the tall & well-built man standing with his motor cycle, timing them and giving them instructions etc and assumed him to be local PT master or someone like that. Then one day, I saw a familar face standing near him in track suits.

"indha mugaththai engEyO pAththirukkOmE", I thought. It didn't immediately flash in my mind but the face got stored in the memory. Well, the very next time I saw the same face on some magazine or newspaper, my mind jumped in joy! Hey, I've seen a national star practicing in my neighborhood! It was MD Valsamma, whose success those days was second only to P T Usha's and the man whom I've seen coaching youngsters there was her railways coach - Mr Kutty. Though I've never talked to either of them during my many walks, I've seen the whole group - the coach & atheletes with a lot more respect from that point onwards. (And sometimes pitied them for the poor facilities they got for practicing - despite getting the nation some honor in the Asian games levels).

Well, I do have a personal picture of the famous athelete, when she visited my son's elementary school years later and gave him some medal

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Anweshana - I guess you are talking about "ilalo kurise" or "EkAntha vELA".

It was possibly 'EkAntha vELA' (the Thamizh one being 'EkAntha vELai')

My second post was on 'keeravANi' ofcourse

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I don't think the other "bayamuRuththal" song from pAdum paRavaikaL qualifies as a hit. So, only two numbers from that movie.

For the Monday song, another movie...is there a Kamal one around?

Yes, the Thamizh version of IR's NA winner seems to be from this year...let's start the music

(sigh...another Telugu remake...full of "kalaichchelvams" this year, endha nEraththil BharathiyArai quote paNNinEnO )

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#268 இதழில் கதை எழுதும் நேரமிது
(உன்னால் முடியும் தம்பி, 1988 , சித்ராவுடன்)

ICM lovers call this song a milestone number in film music.

Let me give a portion from the "Classical IR" section of tfmpage, written by Lakshminarayanan :

/quote/

Considering the panchama varjaya ragam of Mayamalavagowlai, he was the only one who ever used it so far! That is the Lalitha ragam. It seems to be a recent attraction to him. The first Lalitha came in unnal mudiyum thambi, when Kamal sings a duet with the heroine Seetha! 'Idhazhil kadhai ezhudhum' is a great Lalitha. Illayaraja should have definitely got the idea for this tune from Muthuswamy Dikshitar's heranmayim lakshmim. To me, the movements of both the song and keerthanai seem similar. But Dikshitar ingeniously starts the keer- thanai in suddha daivatam. The continuity of the tune that Illayaraja has maintained in 'idhazhil kadhai ezhudhu', the step by step progression from one swara to another, the development of superb sangathis, each and every bit in that tune is simply excellant. This song is like a milestone in Thamizh cine-music. Gangei Amaran's lyrics is unusually wonderful, matching his another brother paavalar Varadharajan's 'mannil intha kadal' (keladi kanmani). He proved himself a poet in this song!

/end-quote/
(took some liberty & edited the italicized area with achchuppizhai & it's not related to music / song)

I don't have to talk more about the prathAbam of this song Ofcourse, SPB & Chithra at their sweetest! I'm not a big fan of Kamal's arai-kuRai meesai in this movie but the KH-Sita pair is very enjoyable! (Plum will come and say Chiranjeevi & Shobana were better but I have not seen them )

I've watched this movie in Palakkad and concluded "it's ok but not great" but liked the songs very much! We've already talked about the samayal song when discussing maNippur mAmiyAr and won't post it now. Of the other numbers by SPB, obviously this duet is the top one for me. We'll discuss the other numbers in the subsequent posts...

The movie's climax was a big joke to me when a "Rajiv-Gandhi-like" person was used on-screen. We kept laughing in the theater. (May not do so if I watch it today on DVD but never felt like revisiting this movie).

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Quickly scanning through the movie listing of 1988 indicates to me that we may not hit the 300-mark this year.

Still, I want to give at least the honor of being the "last song of this year" to the grand number that failed to make it to NBW Let us see what will be its serial #...

[al_gates]

It was MD Valsamma, whose success those days was second only to P T Usha's and the man whom I've seen coaching youngsters there was her railways coach - Mr Kutty.

MDV won the gold in the 400m Hurdles in the 82 Asiad if my memory serves me right. Usha was 18 then but really took off from next year onwards and lost the bronze by 0.01 seconds in the 84 LA Olympics. This is that race, look for PT in the white jersey: http://bit.ly/jayQy

I recollect seeing a pic of MDV at her office either for a Bank or for Railways. Usha's coach OM Nambiar had a sad story though...I recollect reading that at Usha's wedding to a railway officer Srinivasan(1991), Nambiar was sidelined to a corner of the event. The villain apparently was a relative of Usha who caused the fallout. Nambiar had picked Usha as a special talent since she was very small.

PS: App, Judi Brown who pipped Usha by 0.01s to win bronze is from Michigan(Lansing or so..) I hope you will pass her by on way to work

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#267 கீரவாணி இரவிலே
(பாடும் பறவைகள், 1988 , ஜானகியுடன்)

For some weird reason I had difficult time associating IR with பாடும் பறவைகள். The songs from this movie are so different from what he had done earlier. For few years I used think the MD for this movie was Keeravani aka Maragathamani aka M.M.Kreem (because of the Keeravani song!?)

It also looks like this movie "part-dubbed" in Tamil few years after original Telugu release - some parts of Telugu movie was edited out and replaced with Tamil actors.

[Sureshs65]

app,

It was indeed 'ekantha vela'. I ofcourse haven't heard of the songs in Tamil except 'Keeravani'. It was major hit movie in Hyd, with guys flipping for Bhanupriya (and girls for Karthik) in this and for the photography. Other than music that is The songs were all big hits. The movie is supposed to be a thriller but Vamsi spends more time giving 'effects' and confusing people. I thought it was shoddily made.

Again 'idhazhil kadhai ezhudhum' I prefer in Telugu for the lyrics. Seetharama Sastry in absolute crackling form.

[Nerd]

It also looks like this movie "part-dubbed" in Tamil few years after original Telugu release - some parts of Telugu movie was edited out and replaced with Tamil actors.

Yes. Not sure if the movie had a comedy track in Telugu but in thamizh a GM-Senthil track was added. Annan comes as a 'pOli' puli vEttaikkaarar. (Don't confuse this with thaalaattu kEtkuthammA). This one was largely unfunny. Have seen the film too. Mokkai blade. This song used to be a regular in SCV during the 90s and thats when I discovered it.

[PARAMASHIVAN]

Paadum Parvaigal,

Really a spooky stuff for 80's standard, I only saw the movie about 1 year ago! I really liked it. Cant's stand sarath babu , but watched it for Karthik, Banu and IR+SPB songs!, was this originally a telugu movie?