Yusufali Kechery was not an interviewer’s delight. His answers were crisp and to the point never leading you on to something new. But surely what he wrote, his poems, his songs, was a delight. Yusufali chose to write diligently researched lyrics that explored a wide range, from subject matter to style.
For more than five decades, beginning with Moodupadam in 1963, till perhaps his last, Ee Yaatrayil (2014) for young music director Afzal Yusuf, Yusufali was there, writing songs and poems. There was sophistication in everything he wrote, there was class. He certainly did his bit to make Malayalam film music, to a certain extent at least, a fine art. Starting off at a time when Malayalam film music was on the threshold of a golden era Yusufali steered it, with his own brand of songs, through a phase when songs were at a premium.
Yusufali’s innate love for words first found expression when he was a tenth standard student. A poem he wrote ‘Kritharthan Njaan’ appeared in a popular Malayalam magazine and by the time he joined Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur, Yusufali was a sort of ‘celebrity’. He always attributed his four years of Sanskrit study under K.P. Narayana Pisharody (who taught him without charging a fee) as the ‘awakening of a new energy’ that gave his writing an extra edge.
Very few know that Yusufali’s tryst with cinema began during his Kerala Varma days. He was, like most youngsters in Thrissur then, closely associated with the activities of Mahatma Memorial Association, founded by P. Ramdas, the director of Malayalam’s first realistic film Newspaper Boy . He was Ramdas’s Man Friday and was involved in the making of this film though not assigned any specific role. A. Ramachandran, who composed the music along with his brother Vijayan, was one year junior to Yusufali in college. He remembers that after Newspaper Boy Ramdas had plans to make another film, Kadalkaattu . “Yusufali wrote a song, which I set to music. One of the songs that begins ‘Mayalle ennilninnum mamajeeva sakhave…’ is still fresh in my mind. That film did not take off but I tuned what must be Yusufali’s first song,” recalls Ramachandran.
Yusufali enrolled at Government Law College, Ernakulam. Apart from writing for periodicals, it was during this time that Yusfali got his next chance to write songs for a film. Vimal Kumar, a noted music director of the time, introduced Yusufali to the Kanjirappally-based producers at Ajanta Film Studio in Ernakulam. They were planning to make a film called Kattumanka for which they had contracted Job and George as music directors. Unfortunately Kattumanka had to be abandoned even before shooting for various reasons. Yusufali became a regular visitor to Ajanta Studio and it was here that he met noted film producer T.K. Pareekutty, who later gave Yusufali his first break in Moodupadam .
After completing law, Yusufali began practising in Thrissur and later at Kunnamkulam. Though he always claimed that the success of Sindooracheppu , a film he produced, scripted and wrote songs for, veered him away from a career in law, the fact remains that Yusufali, even prior to Sindooracheppu , had made his mark as a songster through films such as Ammu, Udyogastha, Khadeeja, Karthika, Anchusundarikal, all of which had music by the redoubtable M.S. Baburaj.
In a career spanning over five decades Yusufali has worked with almost all the leading music directors, except perhaps V. Dakshinamurthy and Salil Chowdhury. But then he must have had the satisfaction of working with Salil Chowdhury’s children, Antara and Sanjay in the film Ingane Oru Nilapakshi (2000). He also wrote the lyrics for Usha Khanna who made a comeback after Moodalmanju in the film Puthooram Puthri Unniyarcha (2002).
Interestingly, despite a huge volume of memorable songs right into the 1980s, despite working with some of the legendary composers, it was only in the 1990s that Yusufali’s songs won recognition in the form of awards. His songs for Ghazal, Parinayam (both set to music by Bombay Ravi) and Sneham (Perumbavoor G. Ravindranath) won him Kerala State awards for best lyricist, while his Sanskrit song ‘Geyam Harinaamadheyam…’ from the film Mazha (Raveendran) won for him the National award. Yusufali took pride of the fact that he was the only Indian lyricist to have won a National award for a complete Sanskrit song and perhaps the only one to have written so many film songs in this language. In 2006 he went on to write another Sanskrit song, ‘Aagamaya lasithe…’ for the film Indraneelam (music by Ratheesh Kannan).
Along with his films songs Yusufali also leaves back a rich body of non-film songs and Malayalam ghazals. The 11 songs he wrote and set to music by Vidyadharan for Yesudas’ album ‘Raga Tharangini’ turned super hits, some songs like ‘Amavasinaallil….’ and ‘Nenmeni vakapoovo…’ have stood the test of time. So too songs like ‘Thulasi Krishnathulasi…’, composed by M.S. Viswanathan for the album ‘Aavani Pookkal’, which Yesudas sings occasionally towards the end of his Carnatic concerts.
Initially, Yusufali did not approve of Malayalam ghazals and even turned down singer Umbayi’s request to write some for him. “He even asked me how much he would be paid for if he finally decided to write, which was so unusual of him. But after he listened to one of my mehfils Yusufali agreed to write for me,” says Umbayi. The first album ‘Ghazalmala’ (2000) had superb ghazals by Yusufali like ‘Veendum padamsakhi…’ and ‘Sunayane sumukhi…’ and he also wrote for Umbayi in the album ‘Ottakku Ninneyum Nokki’.
Yusufali directed three films, Maram, Vanadevatha and Neelathamara , penned anthologies of poems that included the much-acclaimed ‘Kechery Puzha’ and ‘Ahaindavam’; He served as Chairman of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi. When asked what he considered his greatest contribution as head of the Akademi, Yusufali bluntly replied that he worked knowing well that the Akademi could never create litterateurs but only help them realise their dreams. Perhaps, Yusufali’s greatest claim to fame as Chairman was renovating and modernising the Akademi library.
Yusufali will be remembered for his songs, for his insistence that the word be master of the melody and his belief that poetry is the true source of music.
