மலர்ந்தும் மலராதவை # 37

Saravanan Natarajan writes:

மலர்ந்தும் மலராதவை # 37

வசந்தம் வரும்......

Another casket of sparkling gems bequeathed by our மெல்லிசை மாமணி V. Kumar, another casket that remains unopened, its compartments untouched, its treasures never displayed, their luminescence never admired....

A movie named ‘வசந்தம் வரும்’. வசந்தம் வரும், despite its optimistic title, was destined to languish in the winter of oblivion and rue at the spring did not deign to grace its threshold, for it never got to be released. And the wonderful album that Kumar eagerly worked on was consigned to lie forgotten on the dusty rear shelves of the few audio centers that happened to buy the EP record.

The record gives the year of its manufacture as 1981, and announces the wretched banner as ‘Electra Films’. Vijayan is shown in a ruminative posture on the front sleeve, while Saratbabu smiles at you from the other side. The director of this doomed film was K. Somasundareswar. The songs were written by the obscure Mu. Paavaanan. It was Paavaanan who wrote the lyrics for some lilting Gangaiamaran compositions such as the rhapsody ‘தென்றல் ஒரு தாளம் சொன்னது' (Jayachandran/ கனவுகள் கற்பனைகள்) and the haunting Janaki solo ‘மாலையே, இள மாலையே பனித்தூவி போகாதே’ (மதுமலர்).

This song, ‘தென்றல் தாலாட்டும் நேரம்’ is an exquisite guitar-driven composition, one that throws open wondrous vistas of dreamy, languorous romance. Yesudas and Susheela are the brushes that paint themselves into the captivating canvas, the thrushes that twang to a tantalizing tango, the crushes that throw a log afresh to kindle the smoldering longings of a love-struck couple…Kumar is the ethereal minstrel, the magician who stands smiling with glee at the side-stage, letting his magic sweep over the soiree…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sQmle18CVo&feature=youtu.be

The other song ' கண்ணில் ஒன்று, கையில் வேறு' is a whimper from the soul, a plea for the Spring to come and bloom in the heart of the disillusioned, an anthem of compassion for the disenchanted, a captivating celebration of loss, a carnival of grief….

‘Man’s finest works bear the persistent marks of pain. What would there be in a story of happiness?’

queried a petulant André Gide (L’Immoraliste). Kumar sets to prove this averment of the maverick French writer, and raises note by note an edifice whose elegance rests on the mainstay of muted melancholy. He lures in some rays of sunshine from ‘உன்னிடம் மயங்குகிறேன்’- his own immortal collaboration with Yesudas, plucks some lustrous moonbeams off Salilda’s ‘மாடப்புறாவே வா’ and draws upon the vocals of a brooding Yesudas- the bewitching vocals that bask in a perennial undercurrent of sorrow… all the while Kumar’s piano and violins move in endearing empathy- for Paavaanan’s lines that seek to erase from memory the evidences of a lost love are punctuated with magnificent metaphors….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX3AwsspH_4&feature=youtu.be

Let there be a museum for film music, let there be an opulent chamber for Kumar in that museum, and let there be a mantelpiece for such unheard marvels in that chamber….I am confident of these dreams coming alive someday, even if not in our lifetime....for music such as this does not bow to the edicts of time....it lives on, if not in the memories of mere mortals, surely and serenely in the stratospheres of eternity....

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