COIMBATORE: College students stream into Kuchi n Kream. Mutual friends catch up over coffee. Chefs prep foodies about the latest menu, while a few roam around the café, with a selfie stick to chronicle the day’s events. It is not a weekend, but the place makes you feel like it is. The aroma of fried chicken, gravies and French fries float around, as two happy singers sit inconspicuously in a corner in the café to check their mikes.
Maalavika Sundar and Pravin Saivi can be easily mistaken one of the café’s patrons. The young celebrities made a mark in Vijay TV’s Airtel Super Singer 3. But, talk to them and they dissolve into bursts of laughter and take digs at each other. “Macha, how many shows have we performed together?” Maalavika asks Pravin, who blinks. “Ten?” “Hey, come on da...more than that.”
Jokes apart, both have great respect for each other. Pravin, who is also a composer, thinks Maalavika’s classical music training is her strength and that it gives finesse to her music, while Maalavikaa calls him “a gem of a person”. Maalavika, who has worked with composers like G.V. Prakash, says it is her dream to work with a composer who lets her be. And, Pravin fits the bill.
But their backgrounds are different from each other’s. A few years ago, Maalavika walked into our television screens as the conventional dhavani -clad girl. “I was a very bubbly girl even before, but I was in a shell. After the show, I got to socialise with a lot of people,” says the MBA student from Symbiosis. For a girl brought up in a gurukula system, this glitzy world was a revelation. “I had to unlearn so much during the show. It was difficult for me to accept the cine-music format because I have been singing Carnatic music for 22 years.”
Cut to 2016. She has undergone a total make-over. Sporting a bob, with curled locks falling on her forehead, she carries off the vibhoothi and the stylish indigo dress with equal ease. The fusion in her style is reflected in her music as well — a beautiful blend of Carnatic rigour and cinema’s spontaneity.
Pravin started singing in television channels when he was nine. He grew up in Singapore in a musical environment, as his father, grandfather and mother were musicians. In Singapore, a singer ends up doing more than one thing, he says. “I used to do theatre, cinema, acting, composing and singing. It’s all connected there.’ He worked at the Armed Forces Music and Drama Company, where he had to regale soldiers with his performances. When he shifted to Chennai to take part in the reality show, he had to jump off the comfort zone of both his home and his ego. “In Singapore, I was a judge of reality shows. But, in Chennai, I was competing with young men I had judged back home!” Pravin took it up as a challenge. “The show helped me win hearts and, more importantly, gave me a tag that helped me enter the Tamil film music industry. I did not have to beg composers to find work.”
There are so many Tamil indie musicians now and competition is high, both agree. “The best thing is independent music is being appreciated. You have the freedom to create your own music and technology now backs you up,” says Maalavika. Pravin is hopeful about the future of indie musicians like him. “A network of artists should work for one film so that it adds more colour to an album. Take Friends . It was written by 12 scriptwriters, who shared the best jokes. Why not that for music?”
As artists, Maalavika and Pravin always focus on the essence of a song. They are presenting a composition, shorn of orchestra and other embellishments. “It is liberating because it is minimalistic. I have only a guitar to accompany me. I am stripping the song to its bare minimum,” says Pravin.
The pair rocked the café with some hit Tamil numbers such as ‘Ilaya Nila’, ‘Thendral Vanthu’, ‘Nenjukkul Peidhidhum’ and ‘Ennavale’. A Kamal Haasan medley was greeted with whistles. ‘Inji Iduppazhaki’ and ‘Kanmani Anbodu’ took on a groovy avatar when accompanied by Pravin’s guitar riffs. Pravin even tweaked ‘Poovukkal Olinthirukkum’ to incorporate the name of the café and its chefs into the song. Be it the A.R. Rahman number, ‘Kadhaikum Pennin’ or the Ilaiyaraaja hit ‘Raja Raja Cholan’, the songs were a trip down Kollywood’s memory lanes.
Pravin’s ease at performance comes through in the concert. Be it his open declaration about his crush for a Tamil actress or his shy smile when girls squeal in delight listening to him, he is a true performer, stunning you with his seemingly languorous drawl. And, Maalavika takes your breath away, when she does magic to those familiar strains with her nuanced, clinically perfect notes, all the while sportingly accompanying Pravin with his wisecracks.
The audience’s feedback is the best thing about these intimate gatherings. Some are endearing, while a few are a little unnerving, says Maalavika, who has even got a marriage proposal after a show! But Pravin is familiar with this setting, thanks to his stint at performing in Singapore bars. “There, people come to drown their sorrows and end up drowning us with their requests,” he laughs.
The evening was laidback, informal and warm. The artists clicked selfies with giggly college students and exchanged contacts with newly made friends in the audience. They will host many more such live events in future, says Arunesh Kumar, the general manager of Kuchi n Kream.
