Nadan , Kamal’s new movie starring Jayaram in the lead, is a tribute to the golden period of popular theatre in Kerala. Composing for the movie, which traces the good, the bad and the ugly days of theatre, has been a rich experience, says Ousephachan, who scored the music for the film. In his tenth outing as a composer for veteran Kamal, the national award-winning composer has a lot of reasons to feel proud about the movie. More from the composer...
On the songs
Except for one song, ‘Ethu Sundara...’ , the other three songs of the movie stick to the drama song genre, be it in lyrics, music or rendering. I haven’t done something like this before. It was really tough, but what makes the experience really special is that all the songs have been recorded with live orchestra. What came handy was my association with amateur theatre when I was a teenager. I used to play the violin in various ganamela troupes and a few theatre groups at my hometown in Thrissur. That helped me to a great extent, especially while composing the background score of Nadan.
The singers
Vaikom Vijayalakshmy [who sang the soulful ‘Kaattee, kaatte.. .’ from Celluloid has recreated the magic with the song ‘Ottaykku paadunna...’. She is such a fine talent. Most importantly, she has also played the gayathri veena for the song.
The same song has two other versions, a totally different rendition by Nishad and an instrumental rendition on the violin by Bhavyalakshmy.
Then there is composer Sharreth, who is the lead singer of the song ‘Sargaveedhikale...’. The song focusses on the musical element in theatre and Sharreth’s voice was perfect for the voice from that era. Being a trained classical singer, he carried it off brilliantly. Moreover, I am happy to have given an opportunity for three new singers – Praveen, Rahul and Lakshmipriya, who won the first three places in Gandharva Sangeetham , a music-based reality show on Kairali, to sing along with Sharreth. The duet ‘Moolivarunna...’ has been rendered beautifully by G. Sreeram [who made a dream playback debut with ‘Kaatte, kaatte...’ ] and Mridula Varier. ‘Ethu Sundara...’ sung by Najim Arshad and Shwetha Mohan is a poem written by Prabha Varma. Madhu Vasudevan, who debuted as a lyricist for me in Thiruvambadi Thamban, has written the other three songs.
Association with Kamal
Unnikale Oru Katha Parayam was our first movie together. He is a director with a clear idea about the kind of songs he wants in his movie. So it is always wonderful to work with him. Though some of our movies didn’t do well, the songs have been very popular, be it ‘Mounam...’ from Ayushkalam, ‘ Etho vaarmukilin...’ from Pookalam Varavayi or the songs from Agathan. We are hopeful about scripting success with Nadan as well.
