Clicking the celestial voice

May 25, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:53 am IST

PhotographerP.I. David

PhotographerP.I. David

It was in 1963 that P.I. David started clicking the pictures of a man whose voice later became the most-loved one by Malayalis.

Those photographs of K.J. Yesudas, taken over four decades, tell many stories about Malayalam cinema and its great tradition of music.

David has put those pictures together as a book, Yesudas: Oppam Nadanna Camera . There are more than 150 pictures, mostly in black and white, in the book published by Mathrubhumi Books (Kozhikode). “When I began taking the pictures of Yesudas, I could not have imagined that he would become the phenomenon he did,” says David over telephone from his home in Chennai. “In the early 60’s, he was as much a struggler as I was in Chennai.”

It was in 1964 that Yesudas sang Thamasamenthe varuvan… ( Bhargavi Nialayam ), one of his greatest hits. David writes how composer M.S. Baburaj made Yesudas sing the song 14 times. This song remains one of the best in Malayalam.

“Though Baburaj made Yesudas sing it so many times, the interesting fact is that it was the third attempt that he finally chose,” explains David, who was the still photographer for over 150 Malayalam films.

“All of us who were at the Chandrathara Studio for the recording of the song loved it straightaway.”

There are vintage pictures of Yesudas and Baburaj in the book. Other composers, such as G. Devarajan, V. Dakshinamoorthy, K. Raghavan, M.K. Arjunan, M.S. Viswanathan, Salil Choudhury, Ravindra Jain, Johnson, Shyam, and K.J. Joy are also featured.

As are lyricists such as Vayalar Ramavarma, P. Bhaskaran, Sreekumaran Thampi, Bichu Thirumala, and Poovachal Khadar.

Other singers, including P. Jayachandran, S. Janaki, P. Susheela, Madhuri, Sujatha (as a little girl and as a woman), Hemalata, P. Leela, K.S. Chithra, Shantha P. Nair, and her beautiful daughter Latha Raju, who was both an actor and singer, are there. Actors, directors, and producers could also be seen sharing frames with Yesudas.

In one of the rare pictures in the book, you would find a smiling Yesudas recording, on his hand-held tape-recorder, Carnatic music legend D.K. Pattammal sing. “We had gone to her home in Chennai and Yesudas asked her to sing,” says David. “She gladly obliged.”

P.K. Ajith Kumar

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