Silence is a hushed music

Silence is a hushed music

In my childhood, I used to watch the title cards of all the movies, especially, keenly the section of “Nadanam(Dance): Puliur Saroja”, because, after that section only, there will be a section “Sandai Paiyirchi(Stunt) : Kirupa/Judo K.K Ranthnam/Super Superayan”. There is no surprise in this, as everyone likes the fight and action movies in their childhood, mine also never stood in the exceptional side, hence, always enjoyed only the action movies. But, there will be always an exception in any case, to that old adage, in the year 1986, there was a movie released, “Mouna Raagam” directed by Mani Ranthnam, in this film also, initially, I was enjoying with the presence of the Cameo by Karthik, but as the movie moved, something surrounded along with me, if I say miracle, it’ll be better, don’t think the screenplay, I was only ten at that time, something, which encircled me, the one name, Ilaiyaraja, the composer of this movie. I got some ecstatic moments from the compositions of Raaja, which is far and far better than the euphoric moments I got from Kirupa/Judo K.K Ranthnam/Super Superayan. In this movie, Raaja not only impressed us with his trademark re-recordings but also the songs, actually those are 5 pearls from Raaja, I like all the 5 pearls, but to the most I love two pearls among those 5 pearls, one is “Chinna Chinna Vannakuyil”, well expressed by my darling S.Janaki, and another is “Mandram Vandha”, which is well portrayed by SPB, the singing sensation.


There is no doubt that Raaja composed innumerable evergreen melodies, but in my view, “Mandram Vandha” from “Mouna Raagam” is the real evergreen from Raaja, one who watched the latest stage show of Raaja in Chennai will agree with me, as this song was the second song in that show, while the singer sang that song, the media cameras focused the face of Raaja, one small tear rolled from his eyes, that’s not a tear, a pearl, which is nothing but the song “Mandram Vandha”.


PC Sriram’s camera-d eyes focusing the face of Mohan as the car moving, one will suddenly mesmerizes with some high-pitched humming, honey filled humming one can say, that “aha aha”, slowly comes to one’s ears will slow-faced low pitch, and make one’s ears to send the message to the brain that it is only possible with a divine singer, who is none other than SP Balasubramanium. Always, I like SPB’s finishing in all the songs he sings, but to the contrast, in this song, what attracted me is the starting humming of SPB. In the starting humming of this song, SPB starts with high pitch and slowly, very smoothly comes to the low pitch, one can easily feels the same effect of voice culture in every lines of this song, listen to “Thamarai Melaae..Vaazhvedhenna”, “Nanbargal pole..Thevaiyenna”, and it goes. And in the second-half of the stanza, he does the reverse, low-pitch to high-pitch, listen “Sondhangale Illamal.. Enna” and it goes, really SPB is a man of swaras.


More than Raaja’s composition and the voice of SPB, what I like the most in this song is the Synchronization between both Balu and Raaja. For any evergreen song, the basic formula is the harmonization between composer’s instrumental elegancy and the singer’s Silky touches, in this song one can feel that Synchronization. In that Raaja’s latest stage show in Chennai, before singing this song, there was a pin-drop silence, Balu embraced Raaja, and kissed as Raaja cried, that Mouna Raagam made me to send a question towards the Raagadevan, my sweet Raaja,

“Boopalame Koodadhennum Vaanam Undo Sol”

For me, Even Silence, itself is a hushed music.

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