Mani Ratnam’s directorial debut, Anil Kapoor’s first Kannada film, the offbeat actor Kiran Vairale as lead, Balu Mahendra as cinematographer, and Ilaiyaraja as music composer. Many portions of the film are shot in Bengaluru. There are ample reasons why the 1983 film Pallavi Anupallavi is often remembered, even 33 years after it came. Ask me, as someone who has watched the film not less than 10 times, and enjoyed it thoroughly each time, I feel it is the music that has rendered the film immortal. This, I do not say biased as I am towards music, but it is Ilaiyaraja’s background score that has given strength to every faculty of the film – from direction to cinematography to acting. You could, if you like, perform a test on yourself: is there anything about the film you can recall without thinking of its music?
Let us take two songs: “Nagu Endide Manjina Bindu” sung by S. Janaki. The other is “Joteyali Jote Joteyali” from the film Geetha (1981) which came two years prior to Pallavi Anupallavi . Both these are sunshine songs – happy, joyous and celebrating love and life, of course of different kinds. The songs are largely based on the notes of raga Keervani, drifting beautifully into foreign territories here and there. Both of them have an alaap bit. In “Joteyali…”, it comes fairly early in the song, where as in “Nagu…” it comes towards the middle of the song. In the former, if it comes over rhythm, in the latter it is independent of it. “Nagu…” the song begins on a high note and moves towards a crescendo. The plaintive alaap moves away from the dominant mood of the song – suddenly introducing a second emotion. In “Joteyali…” the song itself begins in the middle octave but the alaap soars into the skies – from the vows and promises of love, it not just moves to a melodic high, but also to a world of dreams. If you have watched these films, you realise that the structure of the song has a definite cinematic purpose.
Ilaiyaraja is among the greatest film composers: his understanding of cinema is so thorough that music is never an independent entity. He writes a parallel screenplay with music and gives the film dimensions beyond the spoken word. I have always felt that the maestro’s mind works like that of a playwright. To say that his compositions have great drama is not a statement one makes listening to the final product.
Let us take the two songs that we are discussing. Why does he use alaap in both these songs? Why is their placement and treatment so unique? For this master composer, alaap is not a component of music alone, it is a technique. He uses it the way a playwright uses a soliloquy. It is a point of self-reflection, he could be using it to change the mood of the song too. Or, like the way he brilliantly layers his orchestra, he is perhaps layering human emotions. It could well be a love song, but can love ever be monochromatic? Can any human emotion be stripped of its complexity – Ilaiyaraja’s music captures a mélange of those feelings.
The opening background score to “Joteyali” is long, lively, with stunning guitar arrangement: “Nagu endide” has more violin and flute passages. But both the narratives are constructed on the same melodic scale. Each time you go back to a classic, it feels like one is reading it for the first time. Ilaiyaraja’s songs are no different. They remain forever new, and full of meanings.
Ilaiyaraja’s musical readings are vast and varied. His inspirations come from multiple sources. Try this: revisit “Kannanchina Ee Maatali” from the 1975 Kannada film Daari Tappida Maga. The opening orchestra, before the song and rhythm pick up, is so reminiscent of the background score of “Nagu Endide””. The music for this film was made by Ilaiyaraja’s guru G.K. Venkatesh. Who knows how the creative process takes flight? It is beautiful, because these mysteries can never be resolved. I for one, somehow feel, that Ilaiyaraja found many answers when he composed music for “Priya”, and as far as his music is concerned, it is certainly not a thing of the past.
I want to bow down to his musical genius: a total surrender.
Inner Voices will be a fortnightly column on film music .
