(by S Madhumithaa)
With the number of days where we are finding ourselves locked inside the four walls of our homes never ending, my gratitude for art is exponentially increasing. A couple of days back, I decided to watch the legendary K.B’s Varumayin Niram Sivappu. This time, I found myself unable to get over the magic of “Sippi irukudu muthum irukudhu”.
I think the song is an example of creativity at its best in all possible angles. For the benefit of those of you who are not familiar with the song, this is the situation of the song. Devi (heroine) has developed feelings for Rangan (hero) but is uncertain about his feelings for her. Rangan on the other hand, comes to know of her feelings but he has not expressed it yet. One afternoon, eager to challenge his passion for poetry, she asks him to come up with the lyrics for her tunes. He seizes this opportunity to confess his feelings for her.
And what we are left with for the next five minutes while she hums and he sings is out of the world! How somebody could come up with something so beautiful blows my mind every single time.
While I admit such “on the spot genius” is far from reality, isn’t that the whole point of art? Can you think of anything else that could transport you to a universe where anything is possible? Just think about the million kinds of proposals we have all watched in movies and read about in books. We have seen everything from the man going down on one knee, shiny rings, red roses to grand gestures of all kinds. But the moment of realization that this song offers is so romantic without any of these things. They don’t even hold hands until much later in the song! Just iconic!
If you think MSV’s composition is brilliant, you would realize so is KB’s picturisation of the song. If you think Janaki has sung it amazingly well, you would realize so has Sridevi made the song her own with her mind blowingly beautiful expressions. If you think SPB has managed to act while singing the song, you would also realize Kamal has managed to sing it while acting. If in the middle of all this, you manage to pay attention to the lyrics, Kannadasan sweeps you over with his lines.
As I said earlier, creativity at its best and it is a truly timeless treasure. As I kept raving in awe of the song that evening, my mother was amazed at how I was reacting to the song in the same way in 2021 as she was back in 1980!!! Need I say anything more about the power of art?
Signing off with nothing but gratitude.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Yajiv
June 6, 2021
Thank you for this beautiful piece about a timeless classic of a song. I made sure to forward it to my whole family (parents especially, who are of that KB-MSV generation) and they all loved it.
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H. Prasanna
June 6, 2021
Thank you, Madhumithaa, it is a song for the ages. Once I had suggested a poetry group to come up with different lyrics for this song. It was a fun exercise.
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vijay
June 6, 2021
..and they say that our films suffer from songs 🙂
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Vijayakrishnan
June 6, 2021
Dear Ms Madhumithaa
Nice article. Yes creativity at its best but it has started with ” TUNE SMITH” MSV and Kannadasan. They perceived the situation and did that in the real time. Rest all you explained came after as embellishments. There is no separate MSV gen as MSV and Kannadasan songs are still liked by current gen too. Thanks with all appreciations and request to visit the earlier years songs (Audio),leaving aside half baked RJ’s VJ ‘s opinions. You will end up admiring to the great creativity of those legends.
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madler94
June 7, 2021
Reblogged this on Madler’s Wander tales.
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madler94
June 7, 2021
Thank you very much, Yajiv. I am very glad to know you all loved it.
Thank you Prasanna! That activity would have been so interesting!!!
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Madan
June 7, 2021
“While I admit such “on the spot genius” is far from reality, isn’t that the whole point of art?” – Beautiful sentence and in fact, as we know from descriptions of how Kannadasan, MSV and of course Raja himself used to work, it is not far from reality. A lot of music IS on the spot genius. That spontaneous spark of inspiration can often go a long way, not to say that the approach of labouring over a composition for months to perfect it is wrong. Haydn and Mozart were overflowing with symphonies while Beethoven wrote only nine of them. They were all geniuses.
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krishikari
June 7, 2021
Thanks for this lovely little post. It is perfect.
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Anu Warrier
June 7, 2021
One of my favourite songs, for all the reasons you enumerate, Madhumithaa. Thanks for this lovely post.
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Jayram
June 7, 2021
Beautiful writeup of a brilliant song, Madhumithaa. Thanks for sharing.
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tonks
June 8, 2021
I’ve watched this movie, and know this song from my childhood in Madras. I have started to watch it again (it’s on YouTube) thanks to you, Madhu.
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Dilip
June 10, 2021
MSV always used to day anything in a movie is a team effort right from actors, director right upto a light boy. The write up exemplifies this.
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praveen s
June 12, 2021
Mayakkam thandu yaar, Tamilzho? Amudho? Kaviyo?
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