Raveendran! This name may evoke lightning in the hearts of several music lovers reading this. He is a music director to have a fan following, apart from Baburaj and Devarajan. The number of die-hard fans of Raveendran may outnumber that of others. He is the only composer to earn a respected position among the next generation composers. It is surprising since the Raveendran style is totally against the traditional Malayalam style. It has several quirks and turns, sudden surges and stops, combination of classical and modern orchestra etc. It is not really melody. It is a conglomerate of experimentations. Raveendran created his own style and approached music direction as if he is a music scientist. It is curious that Raveendran still became a favourite in the Malayalam music. It is even stranger that he had no plan to compose songs for a major part of his life.
Raveendran was born in 1943. He came up the hard way, studying in music college and singing in troupes. He arrived in Chennai with the burning ambition of becoming a singer with the name ‘Kulathooppuzha Ravi’. He wandered in search of opportunities. Devarajan, the main composer, behaved sarcastically with such persons and Raveendran too got it. Devarajan emphatically told him that he would not sing even one song and advised him to go back. Raveendran pledged that he would go back to the native place only after singing one song. Raveendran later remarked that the creators of the sweet songs would be expected to talk sweetly, but that was not the reality. He got the news that his father was ill. Unable to break his pledge, Raveendran fell at the feet of Baburaj. The kindhearted Baburaj gave him a song. Raveendran triumphantly declared to Devarajan that he had sung a song! But he didn’t get many chances even after that. Once, Devarajan called him for a song. Raveendran was overjoyed. But even after many recordings, he was not called. When he was becoming desperate, Devarajan called him to say that there was a song for him. He was asked to sing a few lines of a comedy song – ‘chadikkalikkada kochurama’. After the singing, he was extremely dejected. His dream of becoming a famous singer was diminishing. He was not able to sustain that dream for long in front of the harsh realities of life. At last, he decided to use his voice in a different way. He used it for dubbing. He became the constant dubbing artist for the actor Ravikumar. He sought and obtained the maximum wage among dubbing artists. So he could live in a good way. But later Ravikumar’s chances became lesser and lesser. So Raveendran’s career was again a question mark. He had to support a family (he had a love marriage).
He had become a close friend of Yesudas. Often, Raveendran drove the car of Yesudas. This made him think of a new career. He knew all the recording studios and routes of Chennai and he was a good driver. So why can’t he buy a taxi and drive it? Once, in a recording studio, he presented the idea to Yesudas. Yesudas was not amused. He advised that artists might find it difficult to run such a business. “Why don’t you take to composing?”. Raveendran used to compose comedy songs for ganamelas. But thinking about it as a career was unthinkable. Yesudas stopped the famous director Sasikumar who was passing by, “Do you know this man?”. Sasikumar said, “Yes. He is the dubbing artist Kulathooppuzha Ravi”. Yesudas replied, “Yes, but he is a good music director also. Give him a chance in your next film”. Sasikumar was shocked at such a strange demand. Seeing this, Yesudas said, “If any loss occurs due to Raveendran’s music, I promise to make good”. There was no room for further discussions. Yesudas has such a respected position. So Raveendran scored music for Sasikumar’s next film, “Choola” in 1979, with the unbelievable mysterious song sung inimitably by Yesudas in a resonant voice “tharake mizhiyithalil kanneerumayi”. As the cliché, the rest is history.
The film also had the sweet duet of Yesudas and Janaki ‘sindhoorasandhyakku maunam’, the ferocious ‘kirathadaham’ and the children’s song ‘uppinu pokum’. Still, he was not an immediate success. In the next year, Sasikumar gave him ‘Oru varsham oru masam’ and Raveendran returned the philosophical ‘koodu vediyum’, the pleasant Raveendran-style song ‘iniyente omalinayoru’ and the fast, modern and stylish ‘murukiya izhakalil’ sung by Janaki.
Jayan’s death symbolized the end of both old and new composers and only Syam was there on the scene. Raveendran joined him immediately. It was in 1981 that Raveendran emerged to the top with the awesome songs in ‘Thenum Vayambum’. Those songs still evoke nostalgia. The song ‘thenum vayambum navil thookum vanampadi’ is used to denote Janaki. ‘Ottakkambi nadam’, a song of solitude sung greatly by Yesudas, shows all kinds of experiments by Raveendran. ‘Manassoru kovil’ was overwhelmed by the other songs, but is equally great. It is a mysterious song with an impressive humming and the tune goes through the unexpected paths in true Raveendran style. These songs are the representatives of the Raveendrasangeetham. It is different. It breaks all the conventional rules of the Malayalam music, set by Devarajan. He experiments with the tunes and the listeners can also participate in it. We can make suggestions and analyse the twists and turns. It is not a fixed song like that of Devarajan. As a result, we can hear it again and again and each time, we will notice something that we had not noticed previously. Once, Yesudas remarked that difference between Tamil and Malayalam was that Tamil songs were full of fast words mostly consisting of two letters (‘kattu-kulle mettu-kulle’) while the Malayalam songs were melodious as Malayalam language had rare words of two letters. But the observation is not correct when we analyse the Raveendran songs which are full of two words – ‘otta-kambi-nadam-mathram-moolum-veena-ganam-njan’ and ‘thenum-vayambum-navil-thookum-vana-mbadi-ragam-sree-ragam-padoo-nee-vendum’. Bichu Thirumla did an excellent job in writing lyrics for Raveendran. Yet, Raveendran songs were not fast. It is slow and struggling to flow forward actually. The unexpected course and pace of flow makes it different. In grandeur and classical style, Raveendran is a follower of Dakshinamoorthy. In high orchestration, he took over from K. J. Joy. He presented a strange and unique style and the generally conservative Malayalis accepted it.
Raveendran established himself with this film. He celebrated the year 1981 with the films the nostalgic ‘Swarnapakshikal’, the celebrative ‘Tharattu’ and ‘Dhruvasangamam’. Thereafter, he scored music for some main films and some off-beat films while Syam scored music for family stories. Each five years started with his good songs. The first half of each decade was dominated by him.The first half of the 1980s was his peak. Most of his songs were famous. It is not possible to list all his songs. The slow ‘devangane’, the sad ‘smrithikal nizhalukal’, the sad devotional ‘thamarappovilayalum’ (hear the starting music), the ecstatic and fast ‘poovinullil pooviriyum’, the Raveendran special ‘ragangale mohangale’, the devotional ‘makarasankramasooryodayam’, the lullaby ‘alolam poomuthe’, the very famous ‘ezhu swarangalum thazhukivarunnoru ganam’ (hear the starting haunting humming and the surprising tabla), the comedy song ‘kokkamandi’ sung by Janaki in the voice of a child, the haunting ‘samayarathangalil’, the pleasant ‘idavakayalin’, the happy ‘manjadikili’, ‘mamboo choodiya makaram’, the pleasant ‘manjakanikonna’, the erotic ‘nanamavunno meni novunno’ sung by Yesudas and Vani Jayaram, which had a very pleasant music and was a surprise hit in conservative Kerala (this was picturised on Mohanlal, thus starting a productive association), the children’s song ‘malarum kiliyum’, the sensual ‘njan rajanithan kusumam’ sung by Janaki, the sad ‘thengum hridayam’, the total Raveendran song ‘rajeevam vidarum nin mizhikal’, the pleasant ‘hridayasakhi nee arikil varoo’, the sizzling ‘ninne kandu ullam kollum’ which is sung in a multi-voice style, the loud and joyful ‘pathirakkattu vannu’ sung by Janaki in a very joyful voice, the experimental ‘ravil uthradaravil’ which moves slowly and suddenly rises to ecstasy and then fall back to the slow pace, sung by Janaki in an unbelievable way, the heavily orchestrated ‘rithumathiyay thelimanam’, the wonderful classical-based song ‘leelathilakam charthi’ which was his first foray into the full classical songs and was a start for breaking classical music away from its fixed purpose of devotion and dance, the true Raveendran style duet sung by Jayachandran and Vani Jayaram ‘palazhipoomanke’ (hear its music between various portions), another song of complete experiments with varying pace and pitch ‘sa sa ri ri ga ga ma ma’, the Yesudas-Janaki duet ‘hemanthageetham’ which had the alternative parallel singing ie. when one singer sings in the steady pitch, the other singer raises his pitch step-by-step (Raveendran uses this style in many music bits; remember ‘Amaram’), the modern ‘sagamapadhanisa’ in which Raveendran uses swaras and classical music styles to create a completely modern song, the scintillating hit song ‘sindhoo priyaswapnamanjari’, the sad ‘thalam thettiya tharattu’, the Raveendran-style ‘alolam chanchadum’ sung by Chithra (this may be her first major song with Raveendran), the total experimental duet song ‘illikkadum chellakkattum’ which is nearly musicless, the intoxicative ‘sruthimadhuramswaramunarthum’ sung by Yesudas, ‘sopanagayikaye’, the pleasant duet ‘iniyum vasantham padunnu’, the highly famous ‘puzhayorazhakulla pennu’, the depressive song of bidding goodbye ‘vida tharoo’ a true Raveendran-style song sung by Yesudas with his supreme abilities, ‘manam ponmanam’, the evergreen lullaby ‘omanathinkalkidavo’ which is unusually fast and loud for a lullaby and flowing for a Raveendran song, written by ONV and sung by Janaki, ‘ponpularoli poovithraiya’ which is full of the Raveendran twists and turns, the pleasant duet ‘kannodu kannaya’, the happy, loud and romantic ‘manatharilennum’, the wonderful experimental duet song ‘chiriyil njan kettu’ which starts with the pearls of laughter of Janaki, another experimental, this time soft and controlled, ‘sobhanam mohanam’, ‘akasamaunam’ which was the best possible tune to describe that word and made the singer Markose get noted, the grand ‘akasaneelima’, the Raveendran-style ‘pudava njoriyum’ which has some dazzling music and humming, the pleasant and flowing ‘hridayam oru veenayay’, more pleasant ‘ithiri nanam penninkavilinu’, the highly orchestrated ‘nisayude chirakil’ etc. were his highly acclaimed songs of the time 1980-85. Around his age of 40, he was at his peak.
Despite being a musician, Raveendran was unable to go to the mookambika temple, even after many efforts. When an astrologer pointed it out, he decided to go on a spur. When he came back, some persons were waiting for him to book him for a film on Mookambika and they were surprised to see the Mookambika bhasma on him. Raveendran took it as the blessing of goddess and composed great songs for this film. But the main song was given to Chithra. But like all other Malayali composers, Raveendran too had a male-orientation in composing. His songs would be better if sung by Yesudas. Yesudas heard this song and wanted to sing himself. When Yesudas sang it, it achieved its true identify and became a great song – ‘kudajadriyil kudi kollum maheswari’. It was not just a devotional song, but a song of meditation. The sounds of the temple bells, the total silence out of which Yesudas sing ‘nadathmike’, the ethereal chorus humming, ‘aadiparasakthi neeye’ rising to the sky etc. all create a heavenly atmosphere. There was another song in the film ‘neelakkadambukalil’ which is an intoxicated stylish song, sung by Yesudas in a totally different voice. It is a heavily orchestrated modern song. Raveendran has used all his knowledge of percussions in this song. The song ‘neelakkurinjikal’ was another great song with a lot of styles, but unfortunately it was not sung by Yesudas and Chithra sang it vaguely and badly. It was also famous. ‘Deepam kannil sandhydeepam’ is another good song, a pleasant duet. This film of 1985 may not have been released, but it may perhaps be the best of Raveendran.
Raveendran seemed to continue his form in the next period with the films ‘Sukhamo devi’ and ‘Yuvajanothsavam’, college stories directed by Venu Nagavally and Sreekumaran Thampi respectively. ‘Sukhamo devi’ is a song that made Raveendran immortal in the minds. Just a word and he uses it in different methods to create the entire pallavi. ‘Sreelathikakal’ is a very very fast and classical-based song which makes us look at its intensity with awe. Raveendran made songs even using ‘tension’! ‘Padam namukku padam’ which was a peculiar slow romantic song with some English lyrics also, the poetic ‘innumente kannuneeril’, ‘aa mukham kanda nal’, the unconventional ‘oru kunjusooryane’, the Raveendran-style ‘vanambadi etho’, ‘poo veno poo veno’ which is full of experiments (hear its music bits), but was marred by the vague singing by Chithra etc. are the songs of 1986.
But suddenly, he lost his form. The reason is not clear. But the number of his films also dwindled considerably. Perhaps all were tired of his similar style and experimentations. Perhaps the producers were not willing to invest high amount on him when the songs no longer were important in films (He was strict in monetary matters). There was a definite slump in the quality of the Malayalam songs during this time. There was a feeling that the viewers view the songs as distractions in films. Raveendran was being forgotten despite the songs, the heavily orchestrated and yet poetic ‘pularkalasundara’, the magic world of instrumental music and parallel singing ‘iruhridayangalil’, the experimental ‘David David Mr. David’ and ‘Chandanamanivathil’ noted for its starting music and humming, its constant slow rhythm and the way it gave something for the singer Venugopal to be remembered. Yesudas was complaining about his lack of interest in singing film songs. By 1989, Raveendran was totally irrelevant and Yesudas was also becoming irrelevant.
Suddenly, Raveendran was back with a bang in 1990. It was a new man. He had stopped his excessive experimentations. His style had completely changed. He used less orchestra. His style was more like the traditional style. It was flowing though not fully smoothly. Sudden twists and turns were not there. Grandeur increased. Classical style became his main weapon. In this, he moved towards Dakshinamoorthy more. Classical songs were used for romantic moods. Sometimes, he tuned grand and ordinary songs. He also tuned native style rhythmic dancing songs. He found unexpected success in this new avatar. It is through this image that people know him today. He was more acceptable in this style. He appealed to the common man in a better way. He became the symbol of traditional, decent and respected music against the modern cacophony.
It all happened with the film ‘His Highness Abdulla’ and ‘Aye auto’ in 1990. These Mohanlal-starrers were blockbusters. The first film was a classical musical hit. The classical ‘pramadavanam’ created a sensation. The long song ‘devasabhathalam’ was musical contest sung by Yesudas for Mohanlal and Raveendran for the lyricist Kaithapram. Raveendran erased his sorrow of not becoming a singer by singing this hit song. The fast classical ‘nadaroopini’, the slow classical ‘gopikavasantham’ and the qawali ‘thu badi’ were also famous. ‘Aye auto’ had Mohanlal as an autodriver and the song ‘sundaree onnorungi va’ also was sensational. This was a native style loud rhythmic (generally identified with Tamil) song, with a lot of percussions. The song ‘aeoiu’ was sung by Mohanlal himself. These two styles brought film music back to the Malayalam films. The films were ready to have the heroes sing the songs and even dance. The song scenes were no longer distractions. Classical music became an accepted part of the film music. It seems that Mohanlal played a major part in this. The film ‘His Highness’ also made Yesudas survive the onslaught of Sreekumar.
In 1991, Mohanlal produced ‘Bharatham’ with the theme of classical music and Raveendran gave his best. Though award eluded him again, both Mohanlal and Yesudas got national awards for it. The film contained pure classical songs, ‘raghuvamsapathe’ and ‘sreevinayakam’. The song of the intense internal struggle ‘ramakathaganalaya’ created a sensation. In 1992, Raveendran-Kaithapram-Yesudas-Mohanlal team tried to do it the third time with ‘Kamaladalam’, but was less successful.
To recall some of the songs of those years, the fast classical ‘adi druthapadathalam’, the soft ‘kandu njan’, the ecstatic ‘ramayanakkatte’, the soft duet ‘azhake’, the rhythmic ‘anakkeduppathu’, the slow and soft ‘cheerapoovukal’, the devotional ‘sowparnikamritha’ which was an effort to repeat the magic of ‘kudajadriyil’, the dragging ‘idayaraga’, the slow ‘adyavasanthame’, the ecstatic ‘kasthuri ente kasthuri’, ‘mindathathenthe’, the song of tension ‘nandi arodu njan’, the boat song ‘chambakkulam thachan’, grand songs ‘ulikkunnuvo’ and ‘makale pathimalare’, the classical ‘premodaranai’, the devotional dance ‘ambilikklachoodum’, the very soft rhythmic pond song ‘poikayil’ sung extremely well by Yesudas, the lullaby ‘alilamanjalil’, the grand romantic ‘thamburu sruthi meettiyo’, the joyful ecstatic song ‘aha manoranjini’ sung by Sreekumar, the light ‘koottinnilamkili’, the extreme modern ‘minnaminnikkoodum thedi’, the pleasant ‘arattukadavinkal’, the famous ‘pathu veluppinu’ sung by Chithra and Biju Narayanan, the pleasant ‘ezhazhakumay’, the soft ‘athmavin pusthakathalil’, the soft ‘chicha chicha’ sung by Janaki, ‘enthinu veroru sooryodayam’ which was similar to ‘himagirithanaye’, the soft song ‘kanikkonnakal’ sung by sujatha, ‘mazha peythu manam’ etc.
Those some years were great for Raveendran. But 1994 onwards, he struggled and created many irrelevant songs. By 1996, he did not have many films also. But as usual, once again, he made a grand comeback in 1997 through the Mohanlal blockbuster ‘Aram Thampuaran’. The song ‘harimuraleeravam’ became one of the biggest hits of the Malayalam music. Hearing some comments that Yesudas had aged and was unable to sing long lines, Raveendran purposefully added a long word ‘madhumozhi radhe ninne thedee……’ in the song. It created sensation. ‘Paadi’ was another grand song brilliantly sung by Yesudas. ‘Santhatham’ saw the old experimental mentality of Raveendran.
He found himself again creating popular songs like the different song ‘akasathamara pole’, the soft ‘etho nidrathan’, the famous ‘kuppivala kilukile’, the experimental ‘mane malaramban’, the highly famous pleasant song ‘manjakkiliyude moolipattunde’, the emotional ‘moovanthithazhvarayil’ noted for its nice music, a continuous ‘pulari nilavu’, ‘poliyopoli’ sung by Mammootti (unfortunately it was a good tune unsuited for such an experiment), a highly hilarious fast song ‘kaduvaye kiduva pidikkunno’ picturised on Mammootti and sung by Yesudas with all the involvement, the simple ‘kallan chakkettu’ etc.
The new millennium also saw him with all quality. 2000 onwards, he composed the songs like the Hindi song ‘deenadayalo rama’, ‘konnappo pookunna nattil’ which starts with the Hindi lyrics and then through the train sound, the hero arrives in Kerala to sing the rest in Malayalam about his land and mother through Jayachandran’s voice, the classical ‘ashadam padumbol’, the romantic ‘aradyam parayum’, ‘varmukile’, ‘perariyam’ picturised on Meera Jasmine on her first film, the soft devotional ‘mouliyil mayilppeeli’, the intense sad devotional ‘karmukilvarnante’, the soft and sad ‘gopike’ based on the tune of his first song ‘tharake’, the enchanting dance song sung by Sreekumar ‘manassin mithunamazha’ which is noted for its continuous rhythm and enchanting music, the nice ‘mayam chollum’, the nice ‘alilathaliyum’, a sweet Chithra song ‘enthinay nee’ (interestingly towards the end of his career, he was making even the female-oriented sweet songs), the stylish ‘madanapathakayil’ etc.
After 2003, he was not active. He was seen more in the TV and radio programmes. He was presenting himself and enjoying the result of the hard life. He proved that the composers who tune such hard songs would not be hard persons in real life. His pleasant behaviour and nice conversation made him a regular in the programmes. So when the news of his death in 2005 came suddenly, it was a shocking one. The songs of the delayed film ‘Vadakkumnathan’ were released after his death and these songs became superhits. The film also was released subsequently and it was the last main film of Raveendran. It had a variety songs – the experimental ‘gange’ containing another long call by Yesudas, the pleasant romantic ‘oru kili pattu moolave’, the light devotional ‘pahi paramporule’, the pleasant ‘thathaka thathaka’ etc. But the last song, the swansong, of Raveendran was the highly famous great song ‘kalabham tharam bhagavane manassum tharam’ sung by Chithra.
Raveendran is noted for his long career. A late comer to the field, he composed good songs in 1978 and 2005 alike. It is rare in the Malayalam music world where the composers of the subsequent generation had very short career, mostly five years. Raveendran also would have ended up a five-year composer if he had re-emerged in 1990 with a new style. This change in style made him a mainstream composer instead of a pure experimentalist. He made classical music a major part of the film music. He lived upto the expectations of the fans. Whenever he seemed to become irrelevant, he came back with something unexpected.
Even though, his second innings made him more famous and acceptable, there is a definite charm in his early songs. In those songs, there were several experiments that only Raveendran can try. It was unique and special.
Raveendran and Yesudas, the bearded musicians, had a strong bond. They were close friends even before Raveendran was successful. It was just a quirk of destiny that Raveendran became a music director and Yesudas gets full credit for it. Generally Raveendran composed the songs with Yesudas in mind. He extracted many abilities of Yesudas. It was Raveendran who made the classical music of Yesudas reach the common people. Yesudas sang Raveendran’s songs in a different voice. He added a lot of grandeur to the voice. It suited the tough songs of Raveendran.
That was a disadvantage also just as in the case of Dakshinamoorthy. Raveendran’s songs are hard to sing from a podium and so the singers do not venture into sing these songs even though the listeners like to hear. Actually, only Yesudas can sing the songs of Raveendran.
The other languages have many Devarajans and many Baburajs, but nowhere can you see another Raveendran. Raveendrasangeetham resonates in the minds of the Malayalis.
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