relationship between Carnatic Music and Tamil Cinema
Film music is an integral part of life in Tamil Nadu. To a good section of Tamil-speaking people in several parts of the world, music means film songs. In certain sections of Tamil society, film songs are played over blaring loud speakers at functions like weddings, birthdays and public meetings. Quite ironically during such celebrations film songs about death, tragedy and misery are played because such songs happen to be popular hits.
Music is big business in Tamil cinema and Ilayaraja dominates the scene. He is revered as a cult figure and his name figures on the top of Tamil film posters. Producers proudly announce that their films carry his blessings and best wishes. Indeed, Ilayaraja is the superstar of Tamil cinema.
Though Carnatic music is not easy to follow because of its intricate grammar and syntax by the man on the street, its impact on Tamil cinema has been immense. In the early decades of Tamil cinema it held sway, yielding subsequently to other forms like Hindustani and Western music. Indeed, film music is an amalgam of many different disciplines. However, even today Carnatic music does influence Tamil film songs and composers like Ilayaraja make effective use of it to create rich mellifluous music moulded to popular taste.
Movies began to talk and sing in Tamil in 1931 with H.M. Reddi's Kalidas produced by the founding father of the Indian talking-picture, Ardeshir Irani of Bombay. The heroine spoke and sang in Tamil, the hero in Telugu while some characters spoke in Hindi. In fact, Kalidas is the first multi-lingual film of India. The impact of theatre on Tamil cinema has been powerful, the music and songs being inherited as a kind of legacy. In Tamil theatre almost everyone sang from the hero and heroine to the message-bearing maids, comedians and villains. In a scene showing the villain attempting to molest the heroine, he broke into a song in praise of his own physical prowess!
In early Tamil theatre dialogue was minimal and even a dying man on the screen would breath his last with a song on his lips. The early talkie films, on an average, boasted of 30-40 songs. Pavalakodj (1934) which introduced M.K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, S.D. Subbulakshmi as the lead pair and K. Subramaniam, a lawyer-turneddirector, had as many as 50 songs! Bhagavathar, already a stage star, was an excellent singer and a trained classical Carnatic musician. His fan following was phenomenal. The film became a hit mainly because of its music composed by another legend of Tamil cinema the Carnatic music savant Papanasam Sivan. He made his debut as film music composer in 1933 with Seetha Kalyanam.
The name - Papanasam Sivan - is a misnomer. He was neither from Papanasam, a small town near Thanjavur, nor was he christened Sivan. He was Polagam Ramaiah, an orthodox Brahmin. He spent his early life in poverty, learning music in Thiruvananthapuram, then the capital of a maharaja-ruled state, Travancore, under the celebrated composer Neelakanta Shiva. In deference to his guru, he called himself Sivan. He moved to Papanasam to earn a living as a performing artiste and music teacher. Shortly, he migrated to Madras, the cultural capital of South India. Here he befriended a lawyer, V. Sundaram Iyer. In him Sivan found a friend, guide and patron. He taught music to the lawyer's children, S. Rajam and his sister. The youngest child, a boy of six would observe the lessons and was to become the multi-faceted genius of music, S. Balachander.
Meanwhile V. Shantaram, then at Kolhapur with Prabhat, wrote to a Madras-based movie magazine Sound and Shadow, seeking help to make a Tamil film. He planned to use the sets and props of Sairandhari (India's first film in colour). An expensive production it had not fared well and Prabhat was trying to cut the deficit by launching a Tamil film. The talented names behind the magazine, Muthuswami Iyer (Murugadasa) Ramnath-Sekhar, the magazine-backer, impresario G.K. Seshagiri, Sundaram Iyer and his children and some amateur stage artistes boarded a train at Madras to Miraj en route to Kolhapur. Along travelled Papanasam Sivan, to make his debut in movies.
Sivan chose some songs composed by Purandaradasa, substituting his own words to suit the plot situations. He retained the raga, melody and rhythm for the film songs. He used some of his own compositions for Seetha Kalyanam which was directed by the noted Marati film-maker Baburao Phendharkar. It proved to be a commercial success; its songs became very popular.
Edited by Chalavanth - 18 years ago
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