The surprise song

The moment he finished penning the lyrics of Rathivilasam..., Manu Manjith couldn’t keep waiting. He immediately dialled Vineeth Sreenivasan and recited the verses. The response was a big laugh from the receiver’s end. Do you know this sizzling number in Aanandam was an eleventh hour addendum on the editor’s table? Nivin Pauly’s foam party has revived the foot-tapping vibe of the late 1980s Malayalam cinema. The song going viral on YouTube has earned over 300K views and counting. A Vineeth Sreenivasan ‘conspiracy’ was a surprise gift to director Ganesh Raj on his birthday.

“Nowhere in the discussion of the movie was this song idea presented. All of a sudden, Vineeth ettan rang me up one day and wanted me to write lines in retro mood for Nivin’s cameo in Aanandam. I shook my head in agreement and hung up. I thought about the situation and then called him back,” says Manu.

Manu’s wordsmith powers came gushing in, reminding the verses of yore. Vineeth and Sachin wracked their brains together. “Vineeth ettan told me to come up with a tune that could easily be related to the cabaret style in the 80s. Then came a jamming session, he set the basic groove and I filled in the rest. Manu likes wordplay and he has an eye for the offbeat. Upon fixing a tune, Vineeth ettan picked the mic and started to sing,” rewinds Sachin.

There they were, at the post production studio, planning something for the director boy who was on a roaming mode. “Next day, we invited Ganesh to the post production place. We wished him happy birthday with Rathivilasam,” says Sachin.

This song, excluded from the audio jukebox, however, turned out to be the favourite of viewers. Manu and Sachin were getting incessant queries on its YouTube upload, until the team decided to give in to the audience demand.
The last-minute inclusion posed a challenge for both writer and musician.

The original had Nivin getting jiggy with an existing tune in contemporary style, which got entirely replaced with Rathivilasam later. The upbeat mood and concise presentation have made the song stand out.“The plan was to devise something in the pattern of an ad jingle. All of us were conscious to not leak this surprise factor out and was kept hush-hush throughout the publicity phase. Actually, brevity makes its USP, else, this kind of an effect might have got lost in the way,” says Manu.