Young lyricists have a huge responsibility: Ko Sesha

The twenty-eight-year-old lyricist chats about how he got into writing for Tamil films

G Seshasayee’s childhood friends were in the pages of the books he read. His mother was a librarian and his father owned a library. “If at all I was surrounded by something in my childhood, it was books,” says the 28-year-old, at the meeting room of Navin’s Housing, where he works as Chief of Business Development, “But I was mostly into English books.”

That was before he caught up on lyricist Vaali’s works. “The man has written so many songs for MGR — many of which I believed to have been written by Kannadasan. I believe MGR became a CM because of the work of the lyric writers of that time, especially Vaali. He has continued to write gaana songs and some melodies. He has catered to listeners over many decades for many stars.”

The Tamil poet in Seshasayee was awakened as he greedily devoured Vaali’s works, both in films and literature. It was around that time that he was also into Andal’s works that he feels “held a mirror to society in those times”. It was a new feeling for Seshasayee, who never studied Tamil formally, having taken Sanskrit as his second language. He decided to do something about it.

Two friends, Karthikeya Murthy (Moone Moonu Varthai) and Leon James, gave him the confidence that he could write for films too. Sesha worked with Leon on a few independent tracks — set in themes relating to folk, romance and inspiration. “One of that was ‘Vaaya En Veera’ and it somehow reached Lawrence master, who wanted it for the film he was working on then (Kanchana 2).”

It opened a window of opportunity for both. “I owe it to Leon for giving me my big break,” says the lyricist, who teamed up with the composer again for Kavalai Vendam and the soon-to-be-released Veera . Seshasayee, who is popularly known as ‘Ko Sesha’, has also worked with Vijay Antony on a couple of tracks. “When the makers initially launched the teaser of Saithan , they featured some Sanskrit mantras in the background. That resulted in a controversy. So Vijay Antony called me and requested for a Tamil lyric. I used a line from Sangam Tamil — since it’s about a man realising his true powers,” says the lyricist, who also worked in Yaman and with composers Vivek-Mervin in Gulaebaghavali.

With a dozen film songs to his credit, Ko Sesha is looking forward to taking Tamil to a largely English-speaking population. “It’s a huge responsibility for young lyricists, because film songs have instant connect,” he says, “I believe that to go global, you need to dig into your roots.”