Like a well-practised rhyme do his songs fall from a Malayali’s tongue. That Perumazhakkalam came 14 years ago or Celluloid is about to celebrate five years are forgotten facts when one plugs in the ear phones and listens to Kallayi Kadavathe... or Katte Katte... every now and then. It shows the musician has poured his entire heart out onto the composition. M. Jayachandran’s songs surpass time and geography and the USP repeats for one more time in the soul-stirring compositions in Aami.
Neer Mathala Poovinullil... and Pranayamayi Radha... have won lakhs of views and thousands of thumbs up in a short period. The composer has toiled hard, no doubt. Author Kamala Surayya aka Madhavikutty’s childhood equally belongs to Kerala and Kolkata, so does the music. “Scarcely do such song situations appear on a commercial movie platform. I am very lucky to have gotten an opportunity to give it the music of my soul. It took me through the resplendent lanes of Kolkata’s Rabindra music and the tunes of Kerala. I was asked to make poetic, beautiful and melodious music that could stay green forever. It travels back and forth in time,” he narrates the experience.
The director (Kamal), music director and lyricist (Rafeeq Ahamed), sat together near Marine Drive and fine tuned the music. For Jayachandran, the life of the author was tad personal too. He rewinds. “My mother was a friend of hers. I was a kid when she stayed in Thiruvananthapuram, when we paid her a visit a couple of times. I was lucky to have been pampered by her,” he turns nostalgic. But it took three months of wait for the singer to come on board. “I was adamant Shreya should sing both songs. She was busy at that time. We waited. She was ideal for the voice modulation and rendition as someone who could also take those emotions to heart,” he says.
Jayachandran’s phone got very little time to rest as soon as the first song Neermathalam... hit YouTube. The good words put in by his listeners make him content. “My happiness is in these little musical things,” he smiles. Success and happiness had to go uninterrupted. He became a musician fortunate to have made legendary singers K.J. Yesudas and S.P. Balasubramaniam sing together after 27 long years in cinema. In another way, the song reinforced the friendship of director M.A. Nishad and Jayachandran, dating back to their pre-degree days. The latest Ayya Sami... from the Tamil-Malayalam bilingual Keni-Kinar is an instant hit.
“It’s a song of unity with both the pulse of Kerala and Tamil Nadu blended into. The film throws a pertinent question on whose property water is. The verses are by two writers, the Tamil part by Palani Bharathi sir and Malayalam by Harinarayanan. I wonder if there’s another song written that way. Very few musicians are blessed to have got these two legends together and I feel lucky to have been seated in that pantheon,” he signs off.
