Taking it to the next level
Noted singer Manjari has turned music composer with the album Anuragam
By : aravind k.s.
Update: 2015-08-27 00:26 GMT
In the past decade, Manjari has left a mark with the Malayali audiences as a singer. Now, she has stepped into a new career as a music composer. The music album Anuragam, which was released last week, is getting rave reviews from music followers.
“Earlier, I had composed a single song in Hindi. From that time, I was thinking about composing music in Malayalam too. When I tried humming, the first word that came to mind was Anuragam. So, I continued the composition with the phrase – Ragam... Anuragam, along with some other dummy words. It was then that I approached Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri for lyrics. I had sung many songs written by Kaithapram sir. So I was a bit adamant to include Kaithapram sir in my project, even though he was not active in the field during that time,” says Manjari.
The only demand she put forward to Kaithapram when she approached him to write the lyrics was to retain the phrase Ragam... Anuragam. “We started the work on this song last November. When I called him, he had asked me to send the tune along with dummy words, which I had scribbled down during the composition stage.
But I had requested him to use Ragam…Anuragam in the final lyrics,” she says adding that it was her friends in Mumbai who worked on the orchestration as well as the mastering of the song.
The next challenge in front of her was about the visualisation of the song. “When the production process of the song got over, we decided to go to Bangalore in order to visualise the song. First plan was to shoot it with Canon 5D. Unexpectedly, I met director V.K. Prakash there and I played the song for him, without any discussion about its visualisation. After listening to the song, the first comment from him was — ‘We can shoot it at Munnar’. It was an unexpected turn as we were not planning for such a production style,” says Manjari about the arrival of VKP to this project, who introduced her to the big screen through his thriller movie – Positive.
The shoot was completed in one day at Munnar in Idukki. “This project was a complete learning experience as I was able to witness all the stages of a production.
Moreover, it is a good experience to be on screen for a project under the direction of VKP,” says the two time State Award winner, who is gearing up to compose a song for a film to be directed by National award-winning actress Mallika.