A Doctor’s Verse

Kannadasan through his songs often highlights some technical aspect of poetry elegantly. This week picked a song in which he extensively uses “எடுத்துக்காட்டு உவமை அணி”, transforming a routine love duet to artistic poetry. “உவமை அணி” is using the similarities of one object to describe another.

One might be familiar with the Vikram/Vedal story of a king and his prince riding a horse in the forest when they see footprints of two women and decide that the king would marry the woman with a bigger footprint and the prince the woman with the smaller footprint. On following the footprints, to their dismay they find that the bigger footprints belong to the daughter and the smaller footprints to the mother. Now the vedal asks Vikramadityan what would be their respective relationships if they marry the women as originally planned and how the children they bear would be related to each other.

This week I picked a Kannadasan song BECAUSE it is plain and simple. The song is characterised by its jubilant rhythm, uncomplicated lyrics and the mellifluous singing.

Many a times we skip past a song because it doesn’t excite us immediately or because it has a sad tone. This week I picked one such Kannadasan song that didn’t catch my attention until recently, when I heard Kavignar Vali paying heaps of tribute to it’s lyrics.

This song features in the movie “பாதகாணிக்கை”.

Kannadasan being an 8th class pass out, could relate to people who can hardly read or write and was keen that his songs reach out to them. In stark contrast to last week’s song in which Kavignar uses a lot of symbolism and imagination, this week’s song embodies his unique ability to blend the profound with the simple.

Dear all,
Kannadasan has the enviable ability to become one with the character for whom he pens the lyrics and express their feelings. He often used to ask who starts the song ( hero or heroine) and always wanted to know the cast and how the director has visualised the scene. Lyrics with the best fit then flow fluently and the song is usually written in few minutes.

Dear all,
It was a apparently a time when Kannadasan and Shivaji Ganesan had some falling out and Shivaji decided to boycott Kannadasan for his movies. However, the producer and director insisted that the best lyrics for their movie can only be written by Kannadasan and wanted him hired for their latest movie in production – “பாலும் பழமும்”. Shivaji desiring the best for all his scenes agreed to this.

The toughest challenge for any lyricist, I imagine would be to find different perspectives or words for similar situations occurring in different movies so that ideas don’t get repetitive and words don’t sound stale.
Kannadasan overcame this challenge with ease in ONE movie!!!! – “Shanthi Nilayam”.

Dear all,
This week writing about a song that is well known and very much liked. However, the true meaning of these lyrics are often lost amongst the common listeners.
The song I am referring to is
“அத்திக்காய் காய் காய்….”

Dear all,
This week wish to highlight another well-known facet of Kannadasan. He had an uncanny knack to take his real life events and write perfect lyrics for the movies he works at that time.