Cooking a musical Sambar

Sambhar is an essential part of Malayali’s cuisine and now, it is the name of a film directed by Navas Kallara. The film has a song revolving around sambhar and the man behind the music is Sunny Viswanath. Talking about becoming a part of the film, Sunny says, “A friend of mine suggested my name to the producers and the only condition that the film makers wanted was that the music be very different.” Little did Sunny know what ‘different’ meant. He explains, “The first song was itself very challenging. I was asked to compose a song on sambar! Usually you go prepared to hear a love or action scenario but here I was asked to make a song out of sambar. First I was shocked, then I took it as a challenge and then composed the song.”

The lines for the sambar song start off with vendakkya murringikya, thakali, parrippu cherrunnu sambar….. Sunny adds that the song talks about the preparation of sambar and about it being omnipresent in all sadyas. Sunny has also incorporated the chenda and thakil along with heavy metal rock into the song.

Sunny has been instrumental in introducing new singers, especially from outside Kerala, and giving them a platform to showcase their talent and he did the same for the film. He has introduced four newbies — Sreekanth Sasikanth, Sreerag Ram, Simran Sehgal and Praveen R. The sambar song required four singers and that is how the four came on board. Incidentally, Simran is a Punjabi who is crooning in Malayalam for the first time. Singer Delsy Ninan will be making her debut as a lyricist through this film.

Sunny mentions, “Actually she had written a couple of dummy lyrics which the producer liked and were retained in the film. Many people asked if I was not taking a risk by choosing Delsy as the lyric writer, but I was confident about her. Everyone should be given a chance!” There are four songs in the film and other than the new singers, seasoned singers like P. Jayachandran and Chinmayi have also crooned for him. Lyricist Harinarayanan has also composed lyrics for two songs.  

Working with Jayachandran for this film has been personally satisfying for Sunny and he explains, “I first played tabla when I was seven for Jayacahandran’s song in a show. To get him sing for my song was very emotional. In fact, my guru had once told me — ‘The day you learn tabla well, you will be able to get Jayachandran to sing for you!”  Other than this film, Sunny is also excited about one of his albums with Sunidhi Chauhan, Shaan and Jonita Gandhi. He has also signed up for a Tamil film and is doing a lot of shows worldwide.