An unsung musician

Composer Jitin Shyam, who died in Alappuzha on Tuesday.

Jitin Shyam, who died in Alappuzha on Tuesday, was a composer whose talent Malayalam cinema hardly used. He might have been better known as the only Malayali composer for whom Mohammed Rafi has sung, but his music alone was good enough to claim immortality.

Though he had worked for only a handful of Malayalam films, he could compose some fine songs, including his biggest hit Thalee peelee kattinullil… ( Visa ). He had made a melodious debut in Malayalam with Prabhathakiranam mouliyil… ( Thanal ).

Among the finest songs in Malayalam is

Ee mooka vishadam… , rendered by S. Janaki for

Thaliritta Kinakkal . That song was written by Jamal Kochangadi. “I had written the song after he composed the tune,” recalls Jamal. “The song was also well-picturised on Tanuja, the popular Bollywood actress of the time. It is surprising that the song did not become a hit it deserved to be.”

Rafi had also sung in that film, in Hindi (

Shabab leke woh… ). “Our wish was to make Rafi sing in Malayalam, but he did not want to sing in a language he was not comfortable at,” says Jamal. “Jitin was very fond of Rafi.” He had made Rafi sing in a few Hindi films as well. The legendary singer’s songs in Arab Ka Sona , such as Jab se paida hua… and Gaflat mein sonowalon… became pretty popular. Still, Jitin, whose real name was Mohammed Ismail, could not make it big in Bollywood.

“It would not have been easy for him to make a mark in the extremely competitive world of Hindi cinema, though singers like Talat Mahmood and Kumar Sanu did,” says Jamal. “But he could have had a rewarding career in Malayalam. The problem was that he was based in Mumbai and came to Kerala only

once in a while.”

P.K. Ajith Kumar