Home   Forum   Wiki   Notes   Register   FAQ   Sitemap   About Us   Contact Us  

KAVIYARASU KANNADASAN

Topic started by On behalf of Sankar (@ 210.186.51.129) on Mon Dec 30 07:11:34 EST 2002.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Kaaviyathayin Illaya magan
Kadhal Pengalin Perun thalaivan
Paamara jaadiyil thani manidan – naan
Padaippadhanal yen per Iraivan

Naan Manida jaadiyai aati vaipen – avar
Maandu vital adhai paadi vaipen
NAAN NIRANDARAM AANAVAN AZHIVADILAI
ENDA NILAYILUM ENAKKU MARANAM ILLAI

These are the great lines of Kaviyarasu Kannadasan in the movie Ratha Thilakam where he acts in the movie singing these lines. ( Song.. Oru Koopayilae yen kudiyiruppu)

What a visionary he was ? Indeed, he is NIRANDARAMAANAVAN.

I share some of my observations about Kavingyar. I want all the fans of HIM to join this discussion and add more quality material in praise of his great works.

This is the only way we pay tributes to this GENIUS.

a) Raga Gyanam of Kavingyar

In the file ‘ Thiruvarutchelvar’, no one can forget the great song ‘ Mannan Vandhanadi’. This song was penned by Kannadasan and music by legendary KVM and sung by P.Suseela. I do not think we can ever get a better song in the Raga Kalyani in our tamil movies when compared to this song . This song has all the nuances of Kalyani in a capsule form.

In the Charanam, look at these lines,

Viraivinil Nee… Ni
Mana malar Tha .. tha
Thiru Marbaa… Pa
Thamadhama… Ma
Mayil ennai Ka… Ga

Ni.. tha.. Pa.. Ma.. Ga….
The words end in the avorahanam of Kalyani ( descending order of the musical notes)

Similarly, there is one stanza which will have the first letters in the arohanam ( ascending order).. I do not recollect the exact lines..

Sa…
Ri.. ri ga ma pa da ni sa..
Ka.. karunaiyin Thalaiva
Ma.. Madhi migu Mudhalva..

Do we have any such poet today ?

b) Kannadasan’s command over Language

Also, can any one forget the ‘Then’ song in Veera Abhimanu.. This duet is again a KVM song in Raga Sahana by PBS and PS.

Paarthen Rasithen pakkam vara thudithen
Unai then ena naan ninethen – andha
Malai then idhu ena malaithen

What about the ‘voor’ song in the file Oorkkaval.. PBS is the singer

Endha voor endravanae
Irundha voorai chollava
Andha voor neeyum kooda
Arindha voor allava

The great ‘ Kai’ Song ‘ Athhikkai Kaai kaai’ in Balae Paandiya.—About this song, I will dwell in detail subsequently.

c) Kannadasan’s knowledge of Litreature:

(i) There is one tamil poem in ‘Pura Nanooru’, the old tamil literature.

To know the meaning of this poem, you also need to know about the philanthrophist tamil King Paari. He was so noble and kind hearted that on one occasion, when he found a jasmine creeper without a support, he let his chariot as the support for the creeper so that it could grow. His fame and wealth was an eyesore to cheera , choola and Paandya kings and they waged a war against him and killed him. They also want to marry his daughters who were too young and the marriage proposal was stopped by Tamil Sage Avvaiyar.

The poem is written to a situation where, the daughters of Paari, on a full moon day, recalls that their father was with them on the last full moon day and he is now more now and they were grieving for his death.

The poem in chaste tamil starts as

Attrai thingal Auv Vennilavil…

Kannadasan has taken this incidence to write his song

‘Androru Naal Idhe Nilavil
Avar irundar en arugil’ in the film ‘Nadodi ‘ ( wagabond)

(ii) In Kamba Ramayanam, the poem which describes Kaiykeye seeking two boons from Dasaratha starts as

‘Aazhi sooz ulagelam Bharathanae Aaala’ and ends as ‘ Theeyavai yaavinum Sirandha Teeyal’
whereby kambar describes Kaiykeye as the worst of the worst for her act .

I think Kannadesan must have been inspired by these lines and in the movie ‘ Karnan’, there is a song by SG, Tirchy Lokanathan, PBS, TMS which is penned to the situation of Karnan performing pooja to his father Suryan ( the Sun God). There the stanza

Mannavar porulgalai Kai kondu…. Ends with ‘ VARUMAIKKU VARUMAIYAI VAITHTHOR MAAMANNAN VAZHGAVE…VAZGHA VAZGHA.

Here, he used two negatives ‘ Varumaikku Varumai’ to elate Karnan’s noble charity that there was no poverty because of his abundant charity.

Also, I feel vairamuthu must have been inspired by Kannadasan’s lines that he had sai ‘ maanatthin Maanathai vaangi vittan’ in the song ‘Poo Malai Vaangi Vanthan’ in Sindhu Bhairavi.

(iii) In one of the Sirappu Then Kinnam ( remember the yester years in Radio… Chennai Vaanoli Nilayam !!), Kannadasan himself had said that he wrote the song

Thookkamum Kankalai Thazuvattume
Amaithiyum Nenjinil Nilavattume

Since he was inspired by the lines of shakesphere in ‘Macbeth’

(iii) The famous song in ‘Vaazhkai Padagu’

‘ Neetru varai nee yaroo naan yaroo
Indru mudhal nee vaero naan vaero’

Is based on the ‘Pura Naanooru’ padal

‘ Yanum neeyum yaaraa giyaro
yendaiym numadiyum evan kollo
Sembulap peyar neer pola
Anbudai Nenjangal Tham Kalandaduvae’

(iv).. One Sanga kaala illakkiya padal was the inspiration for Kavingyar to write the famous song in “Balae Paandiya’ – ‘ Atthikkai Kai Kai’

One newly wed bride is separated from her husband since he need to be in the battle field shortly after the wedding. On the full moon day, the lady, is thinking about her husband and feeling lonely without him on a romantic night. She requests moon ‘ I am always remembering him but not sure about how he feels.. Already I am sore without him… you also do not add to my suffering with your full radiance.. instead of glowing here, you shower your moon light on the direction where my husband is so that he also gets romantic mood and gets back to me’

This is what the song

‘Athikkaai kaai kaai
Aalangai Vennilavae’

Athikkai is fig. Also it means glow in that direction ( thikku in tamil means direction / side).

What a great song.. full of name of various vegetables. At the same time, has got a different meaning in chaste tamil.



d) Ability to convey his message through his songs.

(i) Kavingyar came out of Congress but had great admiration for Kamaraj. He wanted to convey his respect and desire for an ever lasting association with Kamaraj. Hence

‘Andha sivagami maganidam sedhi solladi – yennai
serum naal parka solladi’

came in the movie ‘Pattanathil Bhoodam’. In the movie , the song was set as it to praise Lord Muruga..

Kamaraj’s Mother’s name is Sivagami !!

(ii) Similarly

Nalandana … Nalandana…
Udalum Ullamum Nalandana..

Nalam Pera vendum nee Yendru
Naalum Yen Nenjil Ninaivundu
Ilai marai kaai pol porul kondu
Yevarum ariyaamal sol indru….

Was written in ‘Thillana Moganaambal’ for as the meeting song between Sivaji and Padmini after sivaji’s injury.

But, this song is actually written with C.N. Annadurai in mind when he was ailing in the hospital and kavingyar was away from him .

One more great song by KVM in the raag Sivaranjani.


WILL WE EVER GET BACK A KAVINGYAR LIKE KANNADASAN ??

---

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: lav (@ 192.39.39.106) on: Wed Mar 26 06:21:21 EST 2003
  
  U know something...Yday I checked the site to read the updates on Kannadhasan link...I could not find any and I was really disappointed. I have become an addict to this discussion thread. Thanks Mahendran for your excellent contributions
  
  
• From: Dobri (@ 195.39.134.84) on: Wed Mar 26 10:34:33 EST 2003
  
  Wonderful job MahendraRaj. Very interesting posting. You are giving very interesting information and still say its only the tip of the iceberg. Appreciate it.
  
  
• From: R. Mahendra Raj (@ 203.106.49.139) on: Thu Mar 27 10:07:45 EST 2003
  
  Thanks a lot lav and Dobri for your candid comments. Such comments do inspire me to write further. The truth is I did post something but, unfortunately ,the national network system in Malaysia was down. Hence I am doing it all over again with the hope I can come up with exactly what I'd written earlier.
  
  Before I proceed, I just remembered that the song "Oru Raja Raniyidam" ('Sivantha Mann' 1969) was kaviarasar's favourite song and he had asked MSV to come up with different tunes from different angles to make this song a hit.
  
  The late AP Nagarajan( an icon of mythological films with good literary tastes) and kaviarasar were engaged in verbal war of words in the media and at public functions because they belonged to different political parties who had their own brand of differing ideologies. They were often seen to condemn each other's literary productions. One fine day AP Nagarajan decided to call it quits after realising that no one benefitted from this enemity except for opportunists in the political arena.
  
  They both patched up and decided to bury the hatchet and commonly contribute to the well-being of the Tamil language through the film media. Their first such 'joint venture' was 'Navaraathiri' (1964). Prior to this both had had worked together in negligible films like 'Vadivukku Valai Kaappu' (1962).
  
  Navaraathiri was a roaring success. In the song 'Iravanil aatam Pagalil thookam Ithuthaan engal ulagam' one can feel the carefree days of kaviarasar. In that song he had deliberately used the word 'kavingyar' just to reflect his own self! Even APN appreciated it since it also reflected him to a lesser extent.
  
  With the success of 'Navaraathiri' they went on to produce gems in a straight row through timeless puranic stories - 'Thiru Vilaayadal'(1965), 'Saraswathi Sabatham'(1966)and 'Thiruvarutchelvar' (1967).Puranic films saw a re-entry into the Tamil film arena with both these stalwarts' joint contributions.
  
  In 'Thiru Vilaayadal' one cannot, but admire, kaviarasar's prowesness for penning three different situational songs in a row for one single theme.
  
  'Oru Naal Pothumaa' was for the arrogant court singer(this song shot Dr. Balamurali Krishna to fame although his earlier debut in the duet song "Thanga ratham vanthathu veethiyilae" ( 'Kalai Koil'(1964) also by kaviarasar) did not make an impact.
  
  The next song "Isai Thamizh nee seytha arutsaathanai" was for the role of the local competitor (this song again gave a third lease of life to TR Mahalingam)and lastly "Paatum Nanae Bhaavamum Naanae" by Lord Siva himself to mitigate the arrogant singer's attitude.
  
  To my knowledge, no other poet could have written these three songs from three different perspectives on the same theme in a single playwright scene. Whats more, no other poet has todate written a song purportedly sung by the Good Lord to human beings (I stand corrected). I suppose the Good Lord must have entered into the soul of our kaviarasar when he penned the latter song. After all he had claimed he was God, did'nt he? ("Naan Padaipathinaal En Peyr Iraivan")!!
  
  In 'Saraswathi Sabatham' the song "Agaramuthala Ezhuthellam Ariyavaithai Devi' was the transformation of his own experience which he wrote in all earnestness to thank Goddess Saraswathi for granting him the boon to be a famous poet.
  
  For the song "Mannavan Vanthaanadi" ('Thiruvarutchelvar') please refer the opening comments in this thread by Sankar who made a remarkable analysis.
  
  Of course, there were latter puranic films which involved the duo but it did'nt work out well as people's interests in such themes were waning around this time. But kaviarasar maintained his stance through films like 'Kandhan Karunai' (1967) etc.
  
  KV Mahadevan did a good and independent job on all these films. For most of the mythological films KVM was the favourite amongst the producers. MSV and TKR , however, did a good job for 'Karnan' (1964).
  
  It was kaviarasar who started calling KVM 'maama'in jest after the popularity of the song "maama, maama, maama" ('Kumudham' 1961 - MD KVM)although it was written by a different poet. The prefix 'maama' stuck to him until his death recently.
  
  When the team sat down to pen the situational song for the arrogant singer in 'Thiruvilayaadal' kaviarasar had had a mental block. KVM jokingly asked kaviarasar whether one day was sufficient for him to come up with the stanzas. Thats it! the pallavi was born ("Oru naal pothumaa")that instant itself and he completed the song.
  
  TK Ramamurthy, the MD for "Naan"narrated another similar situation. The crew was seated in a cramped cubicle type room to work on a duet song for this film. When kaviarasar entered the room he sarcastically asked them whether the room was enough to accomodate him also! He used the very words for the song "Pothumo intha idam" as the pallavi.
  
  Incidentally, TV Ramana came up with the idea of shooting this scene inside a closed car during a rainy night. The song was something new to the audience and was well received although there were some who criticised it as having subtle sexual innotations.
  
  The success of this song situation was carried to Ramana's follow up movie 'Moodraezhuthu' (1968) with the same team including hero (Ravichandran) and heroine (Jayalalitha)doing dance movements within an enclosed box for kaviarasar's song "Pettiyilae potadaittha pettai kozhi". As usual the critics were quick enough to point out the vulgarity of the song's lyrics and the song situation.
  
  More later folks and keep the comments rolling!
  
  
• From: lav (@ 192.39.39.106) on: Thu Mar 27 11:14:43 EST 2003
  
  Mahendran,
  
  I always used to admire about those three thiruvilayadal songs, for the lyrics and for the music. It was interesting to read about this bit.
  
  

---

List all pages of this thread

Post comments