MARGAZHI MUSIC MOVIES MUSINGS
BY
RANDOR GUY
Part - 2
(In ‘Margazhi
Music Movies Musings’ series film
songs with
Carnatic raga base which
became
popular hits
- and mostly continue
to
be
popular-
will be discussed and their ‘back
story’- a familiar Hollywood expression- will be narrated.)
**********
Tamil Film Music
in
the
early
decades
and
more
precisely
film
songs
were
based on Carnatic Music, and
Hindustani
Music
and
some
songs-tunes were
‘lifted’
from
popular
Hindi
and
Bengali
film
tunes,
copyright
laws
be damned! If film
music
is popular today good
percentage
of
the credit should go to
the
composer
par
excellence, revered to this day as
‘Thamizh Thyagayya’, Papanasam Sivan.
Interestingly his name is a
misnomer. He
was
neither
from
Papanasam
nor
was
his
name
Sivan!
He was Polagam Ramaiah and
that
was
why
he
used
the
name
of
‘Ramadasa’
as his
signature
in his classic
compositions.
‘Maa Ramanan Uma Ramanan…….’ In ‘Hindolam’ is sung even
today regularly in
music
concerts
by
the
top of the
cream
musicians
of
both
sexes. The
song
composed
by
Papanasam Sivan was first sung by him
and his disciple and relative S. S. Mani as off-screen -
background
song
against the credit titles in
a
1936 movie K.
Subramanyam’s " Naveena
Sarangadhara". During
the
early
thirties
the
common
practice
and
convention
of such a song in
a stageplay seeped into
movies. In a stage -drama before
the
curtain
goes up the
cast and crew and others
associated with it stand behind
the
screen
and
sing
an invocation song seeking the
Almighty’s blessings. This
convention made
its way into early Tamil
films
and
the
lyrics
of
such
prayer song included
words
seeking
the
blessings
of
the
Lord
to
be
showered
on
the
director,
producer, and
production company, and all the king’s
men and women!
"Maa Ramanan…".
was sung
in
such
manner
in
the 1936 movie
behind
the
screen
by Sivan and Mani. During
that
period
the
release
of
film songs as
gramophone
discs
was
not
yet in vogue and
consequently the gramophone
78-rpm disc could not be made. Sad
indeed but so true….
Papanasam Sivan had
this song rendered excellently
in the K. Subramanyam musical
box-office
hit,
"Seva Sadanam" (1938) by M. S.
Subbulakshmi, in her movie debut, in her own
inimitable
way. Her "
Maa Ramanan…".
became a hit song
like
many
other
songs
in
the
movie
contributing
to its
box
office
success.
During those
days the song
became
so
popular
that
prospective
bridegrooms
calling
on
eligible
girls’ homes, 'view matrimony’
used
to
ask
the
girl
to
render
the
song. Well,
there
was
only one
‘MS’
and the often poor rendering
of
the
song
by
the
aspiring
girls
was
used
as
a
convenient
excuse
by
the
bridegroom's
party
to
reject
a
girl with the boy whispering to his
mother or sister, '' MS madhiri illaye…!"
Well,
those
were
the
days
but
the
song
is
being
rendered
to this day by
men
and
women
at
many
concerts
of
Carnatic
Music
around
the
world...
(To be continued)
