Little is said about the 15th Century Tamil poet-saint Arunagirinathar in today’s mainstream media. Nevertheless, he has been the subject of three films — twice in 1937 and then in 1964, the character portrayed brilliantly by playback singer T.M. Soundararajan. The saint worshipped Lord Muruga, penned the anthology Thiruppugazh and his songs are known for their complex rhythmic structure.
Chennai-based Poorvaa Productions, founded by independent musician Pradeep Kumar, celebrates the Thiruppugazh , through a musical documentary Arunagiri Perumale . The documentary features eight selected compositions from the work and is featured as live music concerts that are arranged to unravel three parallel storylines — the mythological tales of Lord Muruga in whose praise these poems are written, the historical background of the poet and the contemporary period. While the selected compositions have been recorded using a 16-piece orchestra assembled in Boston, one of the songs, ‘Santhatham’, has been released as a single.
Pradeep’s journey began in January 2013. “I got drawn to the Thiruppugazh while I was composing tunes for it. I used to learn it from my guru J. Venkatraman in Tiruchi who would always mention to me that the text had something deep. I then took a trip to Tiruvannamalai,” at which point Elias Bouquillon, the American director of the documentary, interrupts to say that Pradeep walked the entire distance from Chennai to recreate the experience of Arunagirinathar doing the same.
Pradeep then met a musicologist who helped him understand and obtain insights into the poet-saint’s life and his works. The following year, Pradeep travelled to Boston courtesy Elias, whom he first met in 2008 during the Northeastern University Fusion Arts Exchange (NUFAX), aimed at encouraging international collaboration of artists.
“I badly wanted to record an eight-piece string ensemble for the Thiruppugazh and I gave Eli a gist of what I was working on,” says Pradeep. Eli chimes in, “That’s when I asked him if he was joking — Pradeep said that he wanted to make an album of eight different concerts in eight countries for a mere eight track album. When he finished, I just said, ‘Oh this sounds like a movie,’ and the next minute I was offered the chance to direct it. That’s when I thought, ‘This is precisely where I need to be’.”
Arunagirinathar, for Pradeep, is a person of endless fascination and a source of inspiration. “He didn’t really want his compositions to be popularised, he was selfless, and a master of all eight Siddhis. When I gathered all this information, I realised the literary depth in his works and that the Thiruppugazh is unparalleled in terms of epics that combine the saptham and the vaarthai (the sound and the word). I wanted to show his efforts through the story and through the lens of his own work.”
Around June-August, Pradeep had Skype conversations with the rest of the members of the production team (music director Sean Roldan, Susha) to start work on the same.
Elias and Pradeep then set to work getting in touch with musician friends, people they had met during the exchange programme, to narrow down the list to 36 people that became a final 16 (while Pradeep’s wife Kalyani wrote the notes and conducted the orchestra, the concert-master even turned down a well-paying gig to do this, exclaims Elias).
Apart from live concerts, the documentary also features temples in South India that the poet-saint visited during his travels of musical worship.
“The eight compositions we chose for Arunagiri Perumale were at random and only three have names of places mentioned. We determined the other five — Pazhani, Pazhamudhir Cholai, Thirukazhukundram, Kanchipuram and Thiruvidaikazhi — by selecting Tiruvannamalai as the start and the end point,” Pradeep says.
From their fervent conversation, it’s evident that Pradeep and Elias’s passion for Arunagirinathar runs deep. But it’s the funds they have been struggling with. “I think you could call this a family project,” laughs Pradeep. “But that’s where the Wishberry Crowdfunding Campaign comes in. The whole idea was to reach out to people. And this is not a donation but just funding, and people who help will be closely associated with the project.”
The Wishberry website not only lists rewards for contributors to this project, but also an impending deadline. Failing to meet it will only mean, “pushing back the release schedule, slowing down of the process including payment of loans... but we won’t fail regardless of the money,” says Elias.
But Pradeep truly has the last word about this project, “If an artiste doesn’t struggle he will not get his message across. Arunagirinathar’s message is important and that is to ‘surrender to someone or something’. I surrendered myself to an idea to give everything I have through his work.”
To contribute to the documentary, listen to songs and read more, >visit Poorvaa .
