Me, Music and 'The Maestro'

I am really puzzled how i am gonna search for words to describe a wonderful tale of triumph and that too by a fellow Tamilian. Yet I leave all those worries with the almighty and try my best to pen this down.

Flashback:

The year is 1991 and the day was very special to me. My favourite music director Ilaiyaraja's Thalapathi album is releasing today. Its so special for another reason too. The film is directed by my favourite film director Maniratnam. I am following the duo's movies from the days of Agni Nakshathiram. What a perfect combination? The masterpieces of Ilaiyaraja canned by the genius of Maniratnam. What more can a movie buff expect? Ok..Lets come back to the scenario. I was in the music shop at 10 am in the morning with a neighbour of mine. He was also a HC Raja fan. When we got the cassette in our hand, we couldnt hide our emotions. A film which has names like Raja, Rajni and Maniratnam and I have the movie's soundtrack in my hands. We pedalled the cycle as fast as we could and reached home in 10 minutes. The first track was 'Rakkamma kaiya thattu' and it was a completely different orchestration at that time and it was very different from the previous Raja numbers. I liked the freshness in the songs. It also had some other mindblowing songs like Chinna Thaayaval, Putham pudhu poo, Sundhari and kaatukuyil. As expected the album was a huge hit among the masses. I remember all the Tamil Magazines praising Raja for the splendid work he had done with Thalapathi. I was boasting with my friends.."Ilaiyarajava adikkiradhukku oruththan porandhuthaanya varanum...."

The year is 1992. I read in a magazine that Maniratnam was going to make a film for Kavithalaya with newcomers in the lead. I wondered what Maniratnam is going to do with newcomers in the lead because all his previous films had stars in the cast like Kamal Hassan, Prabhu, Karthik, etc. Still I had a strong faith that Ilaiyaraja would save the movie with his numbers. Finally one day Mani announced the movie titled 'Roja' with Arvindswamy (Known as the leo coffee model those days) and Madhubala. However no one knew about the crew though. Nobody managed to find it too because everybody expected the same team of Ilaiyaraja and P.C Sriram to assist Mani.

One fine day I heard a rumour that the film's music is being composed by a new one. "Oh god..Dont make this happen..Maniratnathukku arivae illaya? If this happens, i am not going to watch Maniratnam movies in my life again". I became curious to know about the crew and started inquiring about this with all my friends. But..Alas..Nobody knew about this. Ok..I will wait till the official announcement.

Few months after that I was reading a magazine and in one page there was an ad for K.Balachander's next directorial venture 'Jaadhimalli'. I was casually seeing the ad and in the bottom portion of the ad there was a 'coming soon' ad for 'Roja'. Seeing this my eyes lit up. I was literally scanning the ad..Direction: Maniratnam...Produced by: Rajam Balachander, Pushpa Kandhaswamy.. Music: Oh..My god..Its not Ilaiyaraja...Its by some Rahman..Sob..sob..

I immediately thought.."Kadavulae..Indha padam odavae koodathu.."

(To be continued..)