‘Ramanujan’ may have arrived and left, but its English avatar is round the corner. The film is to traverse through the road to Hollywood and naturally, its composer Ramesh Vinayakam is excited. “The score will remain more or less the same because when I composed the music the accent was on quality and not on dealing with it differently for the different languages it will speak in,” smiles Ramesh Vinayakam, as we get talking about the impact of the film’s music and his present assignments. “Of course, a little tweaking may happen.”
‘Ramanujan’ is a recent achievement, but not many are aware that about a year ago Ramesh composed music for the Academy Award winning actor Ben Kingsley film, ‘A Common Man,’ whose director Chandran Rutnam, has worked with the likes of Steven Spielberg! ‘A Common Man’ went on to win awards at the New York and Madrid Festivals, “but strangely it didn’t garner much attention for me here,” shrugs Ramesh.
Ramesh’s ease with the Indian and Western music forms was evident throughout ‘Ramanujan.’ “I had to go to the 1920s, because the music had to showcase the culture of the period,” says Ramesh. “The film reverberated with expressions of a Genius and the music had to seamlessly blend with the scenario.”
Ramesh Vinayakam’s RR for ‘Ramanujan’ drew much attention. Ramanujan lives in two different worlds – the mundane and the mathematical -- and the RR of the film reflected both to a T.
If Unni Krishnan’s lilting ‘Azhwar Paasuram’ in the film appealed to those with penchant for Indian music and the Western classical, so did the entire score that had traditional Indian classical juxtaposed with jazz. The story of ‘Ramanujan’ begins in Thanjavur, travels to Madras, moves to London and returns to the place where it all began. So initially the music was very traditional and Indian and even the gamakas were in tune with the period! A tinge of modernity was woven into the sequences that happened in Madras and the Western idiom dominated Ramanujan’s life in London.
Strokes of musical ingenuity were discernible when the RR used in the scenes involving the deranged teacher (played by ‘Thalaivaasal’ Vijay) were heard again when the insular village folk refuse to be a part of the funeral rites for Ramanujan. “I wanted to show that the narrow-mindedness of the people who couldn’t understand the greatness of Ramanujan was similar to that of a man who had lost his mental balance,” Ramesh explains.
The telling silence in the final scene of ‘Ramanujan’, which conveyed the lonely journey of the Genius, is poignant. After listening to the musical output, director Gnana Rajasekaran told Ramesh, “You have approached the music of ‘Ramanujan’ from an intellectual perspective.” The words mean a lot to Ramesh.
But he doesn’t confine himself to chaste and sober strains that appeal to the elite. Listen to the songs of his next release, ‘Mosakutty’ and you’ll realise that they can encompass both the sublime and the commercial. “The songs in the film are already being talked about. Making music is my passion and profession – idioms may differ but I’m at home in all genres,” he says. His next project is for John Max of Shalom Studios, which made the quality films ‘Mynaa’ and ‘Saattai.’
Ramesh Vinayakam is also a sought-after singer. He has sung for Harris Jeyaraj, Yuvan and Mani Sharma, among others. In the past year, his number for the Mahesh Babu film, ‘Khaleja’ in Telugu, garnered both plaudits and awards. “I’ve just recorded a song for Keeravani. “I enjoy singing for other composers,” he says.
As the cadences of Joseph Haydn and Amadeus Mozart, Muthiah Bhagavathar and Subbarama Dikshitar come alive in the course of the conversation, I realise that Ramesh Vinayakam’s potential ought to take him to greater heights of success!
