The Golden Era of Dr.IR and Dr.SPB

[groucho070]

app, we had the instrumental one back then. Radio station here often used parts of this song for opening or mid-section of some shows (especially the tanthanAthanthananA part)

And one popular show had the opening of the song, damn...what sound is that, the creaking sound and the flute, yeah that one.

[baroque]

Adhaan app sollittaare, the logic for this was revealed to app already by one conductor : "nee enna pombaLaiyaa?"

women, children ,elderly , special needs folks, pregnant women avakitteyellam appadidhaan nice and considerate aa eruppanga.

Getting onto bus without chillarai/change, with only notes...App_eng should know better

vinatha.

[app_engine]

baroque

groucho,
Is the opening sound by "maracas" ?

[app_engine]

The other SPB-SJ duet from Selvi, onnE onnu sounds sweet but wasn't that popular then IIRC. It possibly found its place in some cassette-recording-enthusiasts' collections and/or buses on village routes but by and large didn't get public attention. So, skip button for this thread...

We'll move on to another movie for today's number...

[app_engine]

#202 கண்ணில் என்ன கார்காலம், கன்னங்களில் நீர்க்கோலம்
(உன் கண்ணில் நீர் வழிந்தால், 1985 , ஜானகியுடன்)

Sweet song with an excellent strings prelude! Signature rAsA tablA rhythm combined with chords & bass and melodious SPB/SJ. Evergreen number and can be thorougly enjoyed during "before-sleep-headphone-times".

I can't associate this song with college days at all - possibly came during the later half of 1985 when there was relatively less focus on movies but more with project / interviews and such stuff. This one goes along with the 'nilavonRu kaNdEn' kinds where more memory is associated with CBE / Pollachi than Trichy. Very specifically the private buses that ran between Pollachi & Cbe with nice sound systems, played at tasteful volume / bass / treble setting.

Those who know about the geography around Palakkad may wonder why would anyone travel between Pollachi & Coimbatore if the start or destination involves Palakkad (For those uninitiated ones : these three towns roughly form an equilateral triangle, Cbe north, Pollachi south and Palakkad west of both, so to go from Palakkad to Pollachi via Coimbatore is funny).

There were reasons partly related to buses again

The right way to go from Palakkad to mid / south TN should be like Palakkad to Pollachi to Pazhani. (The corresponding rail road was meter gauge as far as I could remember with just one or two passenger trains a day). While both Palakkad and Pollachi are big towns, the travellers between these two were quite limited and so were the number of buses. That apart, except the few gov buses that ran between these two, others stopped at every village, even taking extra circuitry routes (e.g. one with Meenakshi puram, the railway station used in a couple of TFs, possibly by the Fazil group) - making the 40 KM travel take > 2 hours. Also the "last-bus" issue.

So, my typical travel was to catch a CBE bus standing at "kootuppAtha" of Palakkad (means "junction", where the Cbe & Pollachi roads merged together and my place of work was located as well). Didn't have to even go to Palakkad town or bus terminus. These came at 15 min interval and reached Ukkadam (Cbe) in 45 min or so. Add another hour, you're at Pollachi. Plus, you get great music on Cbe-Pollachi buses while Palakkad-Pollachi buses, regardless of fast gov ones or slow privates, were without music.

Then there was this "last bus" problem for my village at destination (until I got my own transportation / parents moved to town) and so to circumvent that I typically indulged in starting late and watching the 2nd show at Coimbatore. Means, starting from Cbe at 1 AM and add 4 hours travel, right in time for the first town bus in the morning Thus went my monthly home-travel routine.

Those trips were wonderful musical experiences as the whole route had bus crews which typically had fantastic taste for music. (i.e. that jelled with mine).

'kaNNil enna kAr kAlam' - the song from a BM movie with Rajinikanth / Madhavi brings me those night travels afresh in mind!

Other than that, I hardly know anything about this movie

Don't even know the story or how it fared in the BO...

[app_engine]

- dig -
கஷ்ட காலம்...

நம்ம பஸ் பத்திப்பேச ஆரம்பிச்சதுக்கு அப்புறம் ஜெ பஸ் கட்டணத்த ஏத்தி இருக்காங்க...-Current Affairs forum-லயும் பஸ் தான் டாப்பிக்கு...

-end dig-

[app_engine]

Some more bus talk...

One should travel inside other states (means not the main cities but small towns / villages) during 80's / 90's to appreciate the phenomenally advanced state that TN was!

Even a relatively better-off-in-roads Kerala didn't have that many bus services to interiors and the less talked about the condition of the buses the better. And, yes, except a few private buses in the Palakkad area, none had music in the state.

AP interiors had hardly any private bus coverage and the same seemed to be the case as much as I noticed during my travails in KA. Only those APSTC or KSRTC ones that were infrequent and definitely non-meesical. There was this Birla Cements township in a place called "Ammasandra" near Shimoga where I had to go thrice. The only possible mode of transport was by train to a nearby small station and request for pick-up / drop by the customer (They more than compensated for the trouble with the superb guest house, phenomenal food -the best pulkA I ever had - etc, but posting here just to highlight the lack of buses to even civilized places not far from Bangalore, in 90's). The experiece was much worse in WB interiors. While great in train services, I'm not sure even MH can boast of great bus network.

That way TN's bus network is terrific! What makes TN buses even more special is the music! I'll credit the IR-mania as the sole reason for pAttu in patti-thotti buses thru-out TN. Why, even the gov run buses had to install music players at one point of time to match competition. I think Cheran, the most enterprising gov transport IMO, was the first to do that. Possibly they imported 1000's of semi-knocked-down (SKD) kits themselves and assembled with Cheran brand for their buses! Other gov buses were relatively slower per my observation. (Ofcourse, now there are no chEra / chOzha / pANdiyarkaL...ellAm TNSTC AyippOchchu).

Music @ buses, music @ tea-stalls & the now-disappeared-but-lasted-at-least-a-decade "recording centers" were three significant cultural impacts that rAsA had on TN! These "cutural impacts" I had seen unfolded right in front of my eyes and can shout for in any platform as significant rAsA-effects!

[skr]

Thanks App for Kannil Enna .
Dont recall hearing this except perhaps once . I like another Shankarabaranam based melody Malare Malare very much.
This was the same movie which also had the Ilamai Idho spoof.

Lots of old posts to catch upon .

[skr]

Btw some technical info of the Bass and rhythm of Ilamanadhil posted by Eddie Dinesh on FB.
Ilamanadhu is a great find...a deadly exercise for any bassie. Hope you folks noticed that the song is in 3/4, while the bass track in the Pallavi is set to 4/4 time signature. So, in the Pallavi its 4/4 bass over 3/4 rhythm structure.

To be very precise, the entire song is in 3/4 with tempo measure of 260. In the pallavi bass is set to 4/4 with a tempo measure of 175. Sheer brilliance of IR. For the rest of the song the bass plays in 3/4, but only in the Pallavi you come across this brilliant mathemagic.

[Murali Srinivas]

App,

Your bus journeys have been nicely explained and very much enjoyable.

Now coming to the Film UKNV, some basic facts that you said you are unaware of. The film was released in June 1985. IIRC it came exactly 2 weeks after Andha Oru Nimidam and the big clash between the two fizzled out and Thendrale Ennai Thodu released in between these two became a super hit.

The movie talked about the injustice meted out to one innocent man by the police department and YG Mahendra who acted as the brother of Madhavi played the innocent character and again if my memory serves me right some forest range issues will form the backdrop pf the story. BM had used this movie to let out his personal anger. During the period of late 84, Balu Mahendra was arrested for some passport related issues and the claim from the police side was that he had indulged in some fraudulent activities. It seems he was tortured like anything both physically and mentally and he used this movie to let out his anger. But he could not do it beyond a point as the same powers to be were there in 1985 also. So BM tweaked the story and went to Malayalam and made Yathra with Mammootty where he had shown the police excesses as well as he wanted.

As I mentioned earlier, movie failed commercially with songs being the exception. Great song with haunting lyrics penned by Vairamuthu and especially the lines

நான் உறங்கும் நாள் வேண்டும்

சாய்ந்து கொள்ள தோள் வேண்டும்

என் கண்ணில் நீர் வேண்டும்

சுகமாக அழ வேண்டும்

will make you feel the sadness that it intends to convey.

Regards