Remember ‘Ennama Kannu Sowkiyama’ from Mr Bharath ? The seemingly funny exchange of words between the two central characters, played by Rajinikanth and Sathyaraj, in the song, is what prompted writer Ponthamizh to come up with a reboot, keeping in mind these uncertain times. “There have been lots of songs on Corona lately. I wanted our song to be slightly different and that’s why I thought of this concept-based song from Mr Bharath ,” says Ponthamizh, about conceptualising a remodelled version of ‘Ennama Kannu’ titled ‘Ulagam Yudham’ (Global War).
For the uninitiated, ‘Ennama Kannu’ deals with the war of words between a father and son, who are at loggerheads, and claim superiority over one another. In the remake, Ponthamizh replaced the father-son conflict with Coronavirus and people, given how the pandemic is a reflection of a war fought between a micro-organism and humans. “We wanted to rekindle confidence in people with this song. Which is why it is fun, and at the same time, it talks about unity in diversity,” he adds. The video has singers R Seshadri and L Kaushik singing the portions sung by Malaysia Vasudevan and SP Balasubrahmanyam in the original song.
R Seshadri
Getting the nuances of the lyrics written by Ponthamizh was the challenging part for Seshadri, having grown up listening to the older version. “There was a lot of back-and-forth, and one day, we froze on the final version,” says Seshadri, a corporate trainer and a part-time singer who runs the company Essquares. Both Seshadri and Ponthamizh credit music maestro Ilaiyaraaja for the “energetic” tune.
The song is available on YouTube
With inputs from Srivatsan S
