Gopi Sundar should ideally be singing from the rooftops. It’s not every day that your work gets recognised at the national level, is it? For Gopi, who has quickly become Malayalam’s most prolific tunesmith and winner of this year’s national award for the best background score for the film 1983 , though, it’s business as usual.
“Well, it’s business as usual with a few responsibilities attached to it,” says Gopi, over the phone from Kozhikode, where he is based. “People have started looking at me and perceiving my music more seriously even though I have always been very committed to my work. The award is thrilling and I am really happy that I won it. But it was totally unexpected, especially given that I haven’t even got a state award in the nine-odd years I have been in the field! On that note, I don’t think of it as an achievement but as an opportunity to get good work. It spurs me on to continue working to the best of my ability,” adds the music composer-singer. His latest soundtrack, ‘Etho Theerangal’, from the movie Ivide , directed by Shyamaprasad, is trending on air.
Gopi himself has rendered the number while the film’s other track ‘Ivide’ has been sung by the film’s hero, Prithviraj. This is the second time that the young actor is singing for the composer after Anwar .
“I’ll admit I started off getting actors to sing my compositions as a marketing strategy, to give the songs and films extra mileage. One thing that I discovered during the process is that actors who are also gifted singers have the intrinsic ability to add a touch of bhava to the songs so that they reflect the characters on screen; a kind of understanding about the characters that may otherwise be indecipherable to playback singers,” explains Gopi, calling Prithviraj, “an exceptional singer” who was “able to bring out the grey shades of expatriate life in the United States”, through the song.
“I made him sing solely because his voice suited the mood of the song. I never compose a song with any one singer/actor in mind. There is no question of compromising for compositions. Sometimes the decision will be reached only after I’ve tried out several voices. For example, I myself sang the first version of ‘Olanjali Kuruvi’ in 1983 ! I didn’t like it one bit. That’s when I hit upon the idea of bringing together veteran singers P. Jayachandran and Vani Jayaram. And look how that turned out. Other times it just all fits in together, much like the song ‘Manpaatha’ that I sung in Mili , which was only intended as a background track. The same with my singing ‘Titli’ for Vishal-Shekar in Chennai Express . Every song that I compose has to satisfy the music director in me,” he explains.
Even as Ivide and his earlier releases this year, namely Ivan Maryadaraman , Lailaa O Lailaa and Oru Second Class Yatra continue to crest the music charts, Gopi is busy across the border in the Tamil and Telugu industries. In fact, he started off the year making his debut in Telugu with Malli Malli Idi Rani Roju , starring Nithya Menen in the lead. He’s also got a few other big projects in the works, including a bilingual Nagarjuna-Karthi starrer, Telugu film Bale Bale Magadivoy , directed by Maruti Darasi with Nani of Eega -fame in the lead and the Tamil and Telugu remake of his own compositions for Bangalore Days , to name but a few.
“Both languages are familiar from my days doing the background score. Just as the cultures, lifestyle and food differ vastly from our own, music for the Tamil/Telugu audience is vastly different from that of Mollywood. For one, they are infinitely more commercial. Secondly, they need more spicy compositions, meaning they need bigger sounds on bigger scales and more orchestration. If a song like ‘Thudakkam Mangalyam’ in Malayalam needs one thavil and one drum, in the other two industries they need the impact of two thavils and four drums! That said, they’ve asked me to retain ‘Mangalyam’ as it is for Tamil and Telugu but there will be more songs additional orchestrations for the other numbers in the remake of Bangalore Days ,” explains Gopi.
Does that mean he’s concentrating on Tamil and Telugu for the moment…? (Laughs uproariously) “Let me list a few of my upcoming films and then you tell me, if I am: I have Ennum Ninte Moideen with Prithviraj in the lead, Abrid Shine-Nivin Pauly team’s Action Hero Biju , Martin Parakkat new untitled film with Dulquer Salmaan in the lead, which went on the floors this week, Shafi’s new Dileep-starrer, Boban Samuels’ new film, Vishwasam Athalle Ellaam , which is releasing next week, Jamna Pyaari , starring Kunchacko Boban in the lead, Urumbukal Urangarilla , starring Lal, Vinay Forrt and Aju Varghese, Fahadh’s new project set in the U.S., Machukka , by a team of newcomers…”
That’s Gopi Sundar for you.
