It is soft as a feather, fresh as the morning dew. As you listen to it, you feel as if you are floating in air, ever so gently. There is something magical about ‘Thamasamenthe varuvan…’ that makes you want to go back to it over and over.
It is perhaps the best Malayalam film song of all time, and it turns 50 this week. It was in November 1964 that the Malayali saw Prem Nazir lip-synching to the enchanting melody on screen for the first time. The film was Bhargavi Nilayam , directed by A. Vincent and scripted by Vaikom Muhammed Basheer.
It is one of those works of art when everything gels perfectly. Sublime lyrics by P. Bhaskaran, mesmerising music by M.S. Baburaj, and brilliant rendering by a young K.J. Yesudas made the song timeless.
“If I have to pick one Malayalam song as my favourite, it will without doubt be ‘Thamasamenthe…,’” says playback singer G. Venugopal. “I first heard it when I was nine or 10, a few years after the film was released.”
For singer P. Jayachandran, the song became an obsession from the time he saw Bhargavi Nilayam 50 years ago. “I saw the film 27 times, from the same theatre at Irinjalakuda, just to listen to the song,” he said once. “That song has melted into my blood.”
Lyricist Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri first heard it on radio. “I heard it from the library in my village and was charmed,” he says. “I had begun learning Carnatic music at the time, and wondered if the song was tuned in Raga Abheri.”
‘Thamasamenthe…’ is actually composed in the Hindustani raga Bhimpalasi, which is similar to Abheri in Carnatic. “The beauty of Bhimpalasi could not have been expressed better,” says composer Ramesh Narayan.
The greatest composer of them all, G. Devarajan, had once said it was one of the few songs that he wished he had tuned.
“Thamasamenthe… is pristinely pure,” says Venugopal. “It is a sweet pain, like romance. It is out of the world.”