It is said that when MS Viswanathan and Kannadasan sat down to compose a song, MSV would usually hum a tune to Kannadasan. Just as the melody is hummed, Kanadasan would just mouth pearls of wisdom that would live to be evergreens, able to stand the test of time. All MSV had to do was murmur. Kanadasan would string his verses in his mind and roll them effortlessly, all good to go at first take.
While making the 1962 movie 'Bale Pandya' (Bravo Pandya), Kannadasan brought MSV a paper that MSV thought was a shopping list. At one look, MSV thought Kannadasan had written down the names of vegetables and fruits. Kannadasan told him to play a tune that could fit the verses. MSV asked him why he was asking for a tune for a shopping list. Kannadasan insisted it was a love song and that he could explain everything afterwards.
It turned out to be a love song belted out by two couples on their wedding night. Of course, it was not a shopping list for the next morning, but a manner in which they were expressing their undying love on their first night of wedded bliss. Kannadasan then explained, in detail, each word of the song to each actor so they could act their parts. When MSV suggested that the cryptic details may not be apparent to the audience, the director then butted in to say that it is his job to frame all this on film. In the song, the poet personifies the moon as a female (as opposed to the sun as a male), where the heroine bares her soul to the moon about her love to the beau and asks the moon to be her messenger to pass the love message. The word 'kaai' can be used to mean 'to dry', unripe fruit, glow as a metal would and many more. The poet cleverly conveys all these meanings to write a love song. The song remains an evergreen and is a testimony to the poet's genius and the music director's versatility.
In literary terms, the formal term for punning and deliberate wordplay in poems is paronomasia.
Athikaaikaaikaai aalankaai
Vennilavae ithikaai Kaayadhae ennai pol Pennallavo
Nee Ennai pol pennallavo
Athikaaikaaikaai aalankaai
Vennilavae ithikaai Kaayadhae en uyirum Neeyallavo
En Uyirum Neeyallavo athikaai
Kaai kaai aalankaai Vennilavae
Kannikaai Aasaikaai kaadhal
Konda paavaikaai Angae kaai avaraikaai
Mangai endhan kovaikaai
Maathulankaai Aanalum en ullankaai
Aagumo ennai nee Kayadhae en uyirum neeyallavo
Ithikaai Kaayadhae ennai pol Pennallavo
Iravukaai Uravukaai yengum Indha ezhaikaai
Neeyum kaai nithamum kaai
neril nirkum ivalai kaai
Uruvankaai Aanalum paruvankaai
Aagumo ennai nee Kaayadhae ennuyirum nee allavo
Athikaaikaaikaai aalankaai
Vennilavae ithikaai Kaayadhae en uyirum Neeyallavo
It seems that poet Kannadasan started off as an atheist. With time, through his voracious readings and research for his songs, he claimed to be an avid practitioner of Sanathana Dharma (Eternal Duty) or Hinduism in his later years. Many of his later compositions brilliantly express the entity we assume to be God - the Force that puts order to things around us, the seen and the invisible, the heard and the silent, the felt and the void.
Here, Mahakavi Kannadasan, in a 1963 composition, tries to explore the meaning of God, which carries different visions to different people, from an external force that oversees every move to an internal mechanism so intricate that it does its own checks and balances.
You say He is not there because you cannot see Him. When you float but cannot see the air, you are hovering upon. When you close all your senses to the external stimuli, is the something you feel is God?
In the crypts of darkness of the night, you awaken. It is pitch dark, but you can make a composite picture of the person before you. There is something beyond what you see.
The melodious sound of music transcends the listeners to an elevated level. The right pluck excites the right heartstrings of life. You dictate the musical notes, but can you see the shape of the music that raises you?
Nobody knows what the other person's heart feels. We cannot read the writings in one's heart, but our gut gives a feeling about it.
Buddha may have deceased, but his guidance remains. The knowledge, the path to life, is that divine? Has truth and charity become unfashionable? After reading about how karma hits back and history repeats, should we be stressing ourselves but let nature take its course?
At a time when justice seems unattainable, and public display of resentment seems futile, when justice is unamenable to the law and whip, let the long arm of Time shall take charge. Time would not hesitate to save the day, slowly but surely! Hence, Time must be God. Is this rhetoric to pacify a crying baby, or is it the secret of life?
This song appears in the MGR-starred 1963 movie 'Anantha Jothi' (Glorious Light) when MGR, a schoolmaster, is running from the law after being falsely accused of murder. Just as he is about to give up hope on proving his innocence, his inner consciousness reassures him there is God. His idea of God gives him the confidence to stand steadfast and persevere to clear his name and marry his beau at the end of the day.
The nuances of the lyrics will surely carry a veiled reference to specific people close to Kanadasan, as narrated by late musician MSV. Many of his messages are cryptic. Just like the song in Paava Mannippu (1961), where a Hindu child adopted by a Muslim family and grows up as a Muslim belts out a devotional song during Prophet Mohammad's birthday. The exciting feature of the song, which was revealed much later after his death, is that every verse of the song ended with words that rhymed with the suffix 'Om'. Kannadasan was quoted to have said that one cannot take the Hinduness out of anyone born a Hindu. Subconsciously, he still thinks as a Hindu.
Yeats, Keats and TS Elliot all wrote fantastic poems. Rumi did the same but at a different level. To connoisseurs of Tamil poems, they transcend all boundaries. A poet can describe his loved ones in so many words, compare her to the lush of Mother Nature or the beauty of a full moon but a Tamil poet tells her at a divine level. Something as mundane as feeling frisky on a wet evening is pictured by Vairamuthu beautifully in a single stanza. (From the 1980s movie 'Raja Parvai' where ironically a blind man describes his feeling to his non-blind companion)
"அந்தி மழை பொழிகிறது,
ஒவொவரு தூளியிலும் உன் முகம் தெரிகிறது"
'Evening rain is pouring, In its every droplet, I see your face.
Some may call these lyrics cheesy, but it works perfectly well for admirers of Tamil literature.
We have heard songs that induce suicide. The Hungarian composer Rezsö Seress is given the dubious honour of composing Gloomy Sunday in 1932, connected to more suicides than any song in history. A Tamil song, Mayakkama Thayakkama from the movie 'Sumathanggi' carries the honour of saving one of Tamil cinema's great music composer from the clutches of suicide. MSV was in the doldrums and was contemplating death. His last wish was to die listening to Tamil music. The song that was playing on the radio was the above, and one particular line struck him. He abandoned his attempt at ending his life and went living a productive life until the ripe age of 85. That specific line is below. It is written to illustrate the turmoil that the lead character was going through as his family commitments pushed him to misappropriate funds at the bank he worked.
ஏழை மனதை மாளிகையாகி இரவும் பகலும் கவியைம் பாடி நாளை பொழுதை இறைவனுக்களித்து கொடுத்து நடக்கும் வாழ்க்கையில் அமைதியத் தேடு
Somewhat striking a chord with his line of work - composing songs for others' entertainment, MSV thought the song was speaking to him to stop his nonsensical action.
Building castle in the heart of the poor, Day and night reciting poetry, Giving tomorrow to God, Find peace in the life ahead...
The above lyrics can be found in the Youtube clip below. The tail end of the song 'Mayakkama Thayakkama' (Queasy or reluctance?) from the movie 'Sumaithaangi' (One who carries the burden) tells the dilemma of a wage earner whose conscience haunts him after he, as a bank teller, had falsified a signature to draw money to meet pressing familial engagements.
These are some of the pearls of wisdom that the attendees learnt at a recent gathering to appreciate old Tamil cinema songs. A group of close to 80 people comprising Generation-X and Baby Boomer Generation, all with a common interest in pieces from the golden era of Tamil cinema, which is obviously between the 1950s all through the 1970s, gathered at a hall in Kuala Lumpur recently. Accompanied by three singers, a musician and a music machine, the organisers managed to cradle the audience to an era when life was easy, love was private, personal intentions were implied, and politicians were honest. Interspersed through this 3-hour musical extravaganza was a discourse on musical appreciation, musical game (a sort of Tamil Antakshari) and a mimicry presentation. Antakshari, an ancient spoken parlour game mentioned to have been played by sages even as early as the Ramayana era, involves two groups and their ability to start singing songs with the last word of the song opponent ends. All in all, it was a Sunday evening well spent, for most of the attendees, who were mainly in the sixties and seventies, a time to reminisce a moment when they were in the spring of their youth and the whole wide world was at their taking. With it must have been bitter instances, but music numbs the pain. The poetic and thought-provoking lines of Tamil songs do it better. It heals.
