The Golden Era of Dr.IR and Dr.SPB

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#267 கீரவாணி இரவிலே
(பாடும் பறவைகள், 1988 , ஜானகியுடன்)

Extremely sweet number and SPB & SJ both simply excel in this number!

Being a rAgA ignorant / rAgA agnostic, I never knew before the name "keeravANi". So, the first time I heard this song on a bus (amidst other noises), my mind caught the first line as 'keezha vAnam'. Once it registers that way, it automatically plays back the same line each time - especially when you're paying attention to many other things happening in the song. So, it was 'keezha vAnam' for me until I got the cassette and I was confused to see it listed differently. When Vivek jokes about cinema educating people of the existence / names of various diseases (dhool), one cannot help but acknowledge the element of truth in it. Same way, during the rAsA era, movie songs are the primary key to educating common public about rAgams & this song happens to be one among them There's no question about the sweetness of keeravANi!

So, from the sweet rAgam, I'm moving into one sweet experience when walking along the agazhi of Palakkad kottai. Which is our feature #2 - national atheletes practicing around the fort

During my walks to catch the morning bus, I've often noticed girls & boys (atheletes) practicing along the same walkway around the fort (using that as their "track"). I thought they were some local atheletes, making use of the available space - a little raised over the surroundings so no collected-rain-water-sakadhi-kind-of-hassle etc. I often noticed the tall & well-built man standing with his motor cycle, timing them and giving them instructions etc and assumed him to be local PT master or someone like that. Then one day, I saw a familar face standing near him in track suits.

"indha mugaththai engEyO pAththirukkOmE", I thought. It didn't immediately flash in my mind but the face got stored in the memory. Well, the very next time I saw the same face on some magazine or newspaper, my mind jumped in joy! Hey, I've seen a national star practicing in my neighborhood! It was MD Valsamma, whose success those days was second only to P T Usha's and the man whom I've seen coaching youngsters there was her railways coach - Mr Kutty. Though I've never talked to either of them during my many walks, I've seen the whole group - the coach & atheletes with a lot more respect from that point onwards. (And sometimes pitied them for the poor facilities they got for practicing - despite getting the nation some honor in the Asian games levels).

Well, I do have a personal picture of the famous athelete, when she visited my son's elementary school years later and gave him some medal