The classico-folk fusion!

Sindhu Bhairavi (1985)

Director and Story: K Balachander

The plus point of this 80s flick is the simple story and the excellent musical composition of classical South Indian music by the maestro himself and rendered in no lesser way by KJ Jesudas and Chitra. The theme here are two fold, the first being an attempt to marry traditional folk songs and musics to the elitist's classical carnatik music. The second story is the masala that involve the main character family life. It is the first message, to me is the great pull to the movie. The affair that build between the main character and his admirer is plausible but was dealt with an unorthodox manner in keeping with surreal arty movie era of the 80s.
In many ways, there are similarities between this film and 'Salangai Oli' in that both deals with people who totally immersed in the arts. For the first time, one can really appreciate the little nuances that differentiate classical music to village songs and even dapangguthu (the funeral cry).
JKB is a happily married carnatic music maestro who takes a lot of pride in what he does. He is due to receive his Padma Prushan national award for his musical accomplishments. He, however, has an elitist haughty feel to his profession and hold steadfast to his orthodox belief that folk songs and other lesser traditional songs just do not live up to the splendour of classical music. He is married to Bhairavi, a devoted wife but unfortunately is kind of tone deaf and not educated enough to be at par with him to appreciate the beauty of music. Nevertheless, they are happy even when they are childless. Bhairavi is happy performing her spousal duties.
A bit of comedy relief by the musicians who accompany JKB in his performances.
On one such performances, an outspoken fan and critique earned JKB's ire for critiquing him to sing in an understandable language rather than traditional Telegu script. This fan, Sindhu (Suhasini), also argues that traditional Tamil folk songs also should given equal importance at the music arena. An obviously annoyed JKB challenges Sindhu to belt out a folk song on stage. What turned out was music to everyone's ears. JKB had to eat humble pie and that blossoms a strong bond between two souls who were deeply involved in music. This platonic relationship soon breaches common decency and an affairs ensues.
JKB's marriage is strained. A confrontation between the two ladies yearning for JKB's love and attention ends with Sindhu leaving the scene. A devastated JKB gives up music and hits the bottle. Things spiral down so bad that this former carnatic maestro had to sing to funeral cry songs to support his drinking habits!
By the way, Sindhu is an orphan who discovers her real mother who, hold behold, is JKB's family friend. There is another side issue between Sindhu and her long lost mother who deserted her after a humiliating productive premarital sex.
So all ends when Sindhu returns to motivate JKB to sing again and to present them with an offspring which resulted from JKB's extramarital tryst!
A nice movie from the musical aspect but the story is quite predictable, really. Illayaraja was flying high at this time with his prolific compositions. He, the master of village tunes showed his prowess in infusing classical feel to a folk songs. In the process, he apparently angered some die hard traditionalists for using a different tunes than the usually used one in his songs. Hey, what you don't try, you wouldn't know.
1986 National Awards for: Suhasini (Indians like characters who appear like candles, sacrificing themselves for well being of other: Best Actress); Illayaraja for Music; Chitra for Playback singing.