Selective Amnesia

Two more videos, and a self-indulgent look at IR

I was born in the year 1982. By then, IR was well on his way to being the legend he is. As a kid, I didn’t go to the movies much. About 3 – 5 times a year at best, if one was on one’s best behaviour. We had a Black&White Keltron TV at home – 14” of bad (at the time best) DD terrestrial broadcast. And we listened. To ஒளியும், ஒலியும் (Light & Sound. Fantastic branding) on Fridays, DD1.

I don’t remember much of those days – except I had fun in the ‘colony’ we lived in. But, without a conscious decision to remember these songs, I got to like them. I still don’t recall actively trying to learn the lyrics, but I can parrot them now without a second’s thought.

Also, I remember I acted like every average tam-bram, middle class kid back then. A deluded attempt at learning hindi, courting hindi, wanting to be like the Gujjus and Marvadis at class who could hold a long conversation with the hindi ‘miss’. (I still repent for my silliness)

Yet. Still. These 2 songs and a 100 more of their ilk have been the ones I go back to. Everyday, at home or at work. These songs were (and are) as evocative as you can imagine them to be. And for a tam-bram kid in Madras who wasn’t very aware of Rock, Rock & Roll, Jazz (there are a lot of them), the guitar (second video…like, DOH!) held both a strange fascination and an unexplained fear. And the sounds Illayaraaja created have wormed their way into my consciousness in a way that few others have managed.

These songs also made SPB what he is.

So then, here was a kid who didn’t see the movies these songs were a part of, (not these two particular songs, though. DD Sunday had its uses – Mouna Ragam, Veedu, Agni Natchathiram, Nayagan were all seen – family clustered on the one couch-cum-bed on our newly-acquired Solidaire TV (second-hand) and remembered years later) yet could sing it (badly) at the office party, defend very vocally any attempt the Northies would make to claim it for Laxmikant-Pyarelal’s library, and would make false attempts at remembering the storyline of the movie.

Even today, I can’t really tell you the movie or the hero or the story that IR’s best songs feature in. (Thanks to the internet, YouTube, Google and shame, I now can) That doesn’t stop me from nodding my head sagely when random strangers compliment me on my taste in music (at work) or when friends discuss lyrics, lyricist and 80s Tamil Cinema.

I have rambled on for over a page now, and still haven’t come to the point. That of IR’s brilliance.
But then, I don’t have to. It’s the whole reason for this post. IR was brilliant. Movies ran to packed houses only because he wielded the baton. His streak, still unmatched in the film industry, gave ‘mike’ Mohan his shot at celebrity-hood and, more importantly, immortality.

Eventually though, greats fall off their pedestal. Soldiers fade out. IR has. His voice – which made me look up the word ‘Blues’ for the first time, has been mutilated beyond belief. And by his own son. A.R.Rahman came, changed a lot of things, but made some fantastic music. But, he too lost the ability to stun audiences. Or, well, make music that people liked.

It’s a pity really. Because, we now have to tolerate Srikanth Deva and Yuvan Shankar Raaja.

I’ll leave you with two more videos. From the movies I actually saw.

tamil | tamil film music | Illayaraaja | Nostalgia