Mankombu Gopalakrishnan: Malayalam’s man of diction who feared Emergency, but dared to experiment

Kochi: Mankombu Gopalakrishnan, who passed away in Kochi on Monday after an illustrious career in Malayalam cinema, was a silent poet whose voice was always heard.

In the world of Malayalam movie songs ruled by legendary lyricists like Vayalar Ramavarma, ONV Kurup, P Bhaskaran and Sreekumaran Thampy, Gopalakrishnan found himself a place with the irrefutable quality of his lyrics. They oozed out romance, and continues to do so with an uncompromising amount of freshness.

His body of lyrical works include classics such as Laksharchana Kandu (Film: Ayalathe Sundari), Thrayampakam villodinju (Ayalathe Sundari), Naadan pattinte (Babu mon), Ashada masam (Yuddha bhoomi), Thalippoo peelippoo (Sujatha), Swyamvara Subhadina Mangalangal (Sujatha), Thozukai kooppi unarum (Boeing Boeing), Nadangalayi nee varoo (Ninnishtam Ennishtam) and Ilam manjin kulirumayoru kuyil (Ninnishtam Ennishtam).

Landed in cinema from a stint as a magazine journalist in Chennai in 1970s, Gopalakrishnan was a man of diction. “So you got into this compartment by mistake; but you definitely have a seat here,” Malayalam’s musical giant G Devarajan quipped once to the young Gopalakrishnan. He chose his words carefully; a trait which helped his later ventures as a translator of lyrics and dialogues from Tamil and Telugu films.

Be it a Laksharchana, a Thrayambakam, or a syamantha panchakam, the choice of unusual but familiar words and even certain such syllables to begin some of his songs was a trick he played to gain attention in a world of many masters, he said in an interview four years ago. This pragmatism he kept throughout his career and he was never apologetic about it.

In 1976, during the peak of Emergency, Gopalakrishnan was scared of landing in jail, thanks to the song Thrisanku swargathe thampuratti, which those in the Left circles celebrated as an allegory of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. “I was afraid of being arrested. It was first beating, then questioning those days,” he remembered.

Filmmaker Hariharan, with whom he worked in around 25 films, came to Gopalakrishnan’s rescue. Hariharan suggested writing a song praising Indira Gandhi’s 20-point programme implemented during the Emergency. Gopalakrishnan just did it. He did not fit into the vast category of Malayali writers loaded with political posturing. For him, writing was a means of living, be it songs, scripts or dubbed versions. On being too busy with translating films from other languages into Malayalam, his point was extremely honest: “It’s for income only. I don’t know any other job. I’m proud of what I do. Movie translations have helped me earn more money than what I got from writing songs.” He has written the Malayalam dialogues and songs for major Telugu hits, including Bahubali and RRR.

In his career spanning over five decades, Gopalakrishnan had the opportunity to work closely with luminaries from different languages. Bollywood great Ravindra Jain composed his lyrics for the film Sujath, directed by Hariharan, in 1977.

The result was Swayamvara subhadina mangalangal, the lone Malayalam song sung by Asha Bhosle. As a friend and colleague, he was at ease with the great Malayalam composers M S Viswanathan, V Dakshinamoorthy, Devarajan, M S Baburaj and M K Arjunan. He considered lyricist Abhayadev as his guru.

Gopalakrishnan believed in the power of composition and was always open to his composers’ suggestions. “By the end of the day, a song should reach the masses with an appealing tune. What’s the problem if one has to change a word or two for that,” he asked.