How Jayachandran's mellifluous elegance wafted through Devarajan's ‘track of destiny’ for Yesudas
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Devarajan Master popped up a question in a serious tone to the young singer who came to sing a song with comic overtones: “Can you sing the track for a song which is to be sung by Yesudas?”
The young man, who had come as far as Hyderabad to make a mark as a playback singer, didn’t have to think again. So pat came the answer: “Yes, I can.”
Devarajan master did not have to toil much to make the singer understand the processes when they entered the studio. After he sang, Devarajan Master asked him to sing once again with the orchestra's accompaniment.
Mighty pleased he was, but Devarajan, a tough task master, did not express that for obvious reasons. He made the young man sing once more. Just for the sake of it. In the third take, the young man excelled in intonation, even better than the instructions given to him.
“Now you can collect the wages and leave. Das will arrive soon,” Devarajan Master proclaimed without an iota of warmth, and the young man left the console. He just loitered there for some time after collecting his remuneration: Rs 50. “The song was good,” came another voice as the bewildered young man looked up. It was M Krishnan Nair.
“What about the second?” He could not hold back his curiosity. Nair nodded: “That was also fine.” The young man gradually realised the stress of the word fine. “Alas, If I got that song…” he mumbled with a polite eagerness knowing that he was conversing with none other than the director of the movie. Nair responded with a loud smile even before he could complete that utterance.
He then proclaimed, “ It was your song only.”
That left the 21-year-old young man stunned. “But Master (Devarajan) told me it was the track for Yesudas,” he said in a cautious tone. “These are all Devarajan’s pranks,” Nair uttered with his trademark laugh.
Akin to his evergreen song Manjalayil Mungi Thorthi’s lyrics, the moon as well as the stars were shining bright on the young man named P Jayachandran, who was to render umpteen songs that swayed generations of Malayalis. That is resonating even now in the musical pantheon of Malayalam. Jayachandran set foot in a film industry which reverberated with this motto: Since Yesudas is here, what is the need for another singer? Probably, the stars that shone bright had the answer to that query. The song from the movie Kalithozhan is etched in the history of Malayalam films.
Such was the confidence exuded by the singer after his debut song in Kunjalimaraikkar that the Kalithozhan song’s lyrics penned by P Bhaskaran laced with Devarajan’s melody is still resonating with a never-ending charm. Though it was B A Chidambaranath who gave Jayachandran his break, Manjalayil was the song which Malayali music lovers heard first.
The timeless duo of Prem Nazir and Sheela were destined to grace the screen during the song sequences. They were reprising a failed relationship, due to some misunderstandings. The protagonist is soaked in despair, but still craves for a reunion. The burden of that endless wait has to choke with emotions and resonate with the anguish of that lingering feeling. Devarajan has this uncanny ability to weave his songs according to the demands of the situation. And the singer’s depth provided what is an evergreen musical experience to Malayalis.
As the lucid melancholy of the flute wafts in, Jayachandran, or rather his voice, has to traverse through a variety of emotions and offer a feel of melancholy without fail.
That it has to have a bittersweet connotation also makes the task tougher for any singer. That was six decades ago, but Manjalayil still wafts through the musical terrain of Mollywood. And the lyrics by P Bhaskaran were etched with the soothing overtures of melody and haunting flight of despondency. Jayachandran could carry it all. A young singer also arrived in a scenario where a larger-than-life Yesudas was making waves.
The music director and the lyricist had a deep understanding about the intense love story of Venu and Radha, who were separated by quirk of fate. The singer had to dabble with a range of emotions, understanding the nuances of Venu’s affection for Radha in this eternal love theme. Each word and line had to fuse passion, affection, despair and the wanton burden of a relationship gone sour.
Jayachandran’s prowess in effectively communicating all these shades of such an in-depth musical is testimony to his six decades of journey as a versatile singer.
As new technologies also gave a cutting edge to songs in films, the level of expectations as well the range of the singer zoomed to a different level.
The song was a massive hit, much more than the film itself: That was a rare phenomenon in films those days. Suffice it to say that Jayachandran became a permanent fixture in Devarajan Master’s playbook of melody. There was no going back then.
“If Master (Devarajan) hadn’t given the song to me, what would have happened,” Jayachandran often recalled as tears draped his eyelashes, his folded hands trembling, as if lauding the heavenly intervention.
This intervention facilitated immortal songs with not just the lip movement or the effervescent switch of tones spurred by the tongue, nasal passages, and even the delicate use of nostrils.
It is another matter that though Devarajan said the song was for Yesudas, the prodigal singer didn’t have even one song in Kalithozhan!
Now if you traverse through time and reach the venue of the State Youth Fest in 1958. There we can spot the background tracks being sung for the singing competition by a Mridangam artiste named P Jayachandran. The lead singer was none other than K J Yesudas. Destiny was only fair when their life trajectories catapulted both of them to the grand canvas of Malayalam film music.