A birthday present for Mammootty

Lijo Johnson, an upcoming music composer, who made a music video for Mammootty’s birthday, is happy that the song is getting a warm response from everyone including the actor.
Saying that it is his gift to Mammootty, one of his favourite actors, Lijo adds, “I was so happy to hear that Mammukka liked it.”

It was life in Chennai that inspired him to do this video. “In Chennai, I had seen fans or well-wishers of a celebrity making surprise videos for their star on occasions like this. That encouraged me to do this in Malayalam,” says Lijo.

The idea was sudden and the team had just 15 days to execute it. Director Salam Bappu, actors Jayaram, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Narain, Aju Varghese and Guiness Pakru are a few celebrities who appeared in the song to wish the actor.

“Everyone whom I approached to wish Mammukka birthday through my video was willing. But, due to time constraints, I couldn’t include all of them,” says the composer.

Lijo has penned the lyrics for the video, which also includes dialogues immortalised by the actor. The song has been sung by Rimi Tomy, Lijo and Mithun.

“Rimi is the lead singer. I couldn’t find any other singer to sing this fast number other than her. She was happy to be associated with this project.

Though she was busy with her brother’s marriage, she managed to find time to do this. And she has sung beautifully, bringing out the enthusiasm as expected,” he says, “Finding apt visuals to match the song was a hectic task. The whole credit of that goes to my editing team who worked in record time to get the correct visuals and fuse them perfectly.”

Why did Lijo choose Mammootty’s birthday? “It is because Mammukka’s personality and movies have inspired me a lot in life. Particularly his movie Best Actor. This movie, which portrays the struggles of an aspiring talent, was a real inspiration to me. I was also like that character at one point and I could relate to him easily. Besides movies, I like his look and philanthropic attitude,” says Lijo, who started his music career with devotional albums.

“Right now, I am assisting in a Tamil movie and working on an independent Tamil music album,” he concludes.