The Golden Era of Dr.IR and Dr.SPB

[app_engine]

#268 இதழில் கதை எழுதும் நேரமிது
(உன்னால் முடியும் தம்பி, 1988 , சித்ராவுடன்)

ICM lovers call this song a milestone number in film music.

Let me give a portion from the "Classical IR" section of tfmpage, written by Lakshminarayanan :

/quote/

Considering the panchama varjaya ragam of Mayamalavagowlai, he was the only one who ever used it so far! That is the Lalitha ragam. It seems to be a recent attraction to him. The first Lalitha came in unnal mudiyum thambi, when Kamal sings a duet with the heroine Seetha! 'Idhazhil kadhai ezhudhum' is a great Lalitha. Illayaraja should have definitely got the idea for this tune from Muthuswamy Dikshitar's heranmayim lakshmim. To me, the movements of both the song and keerthanai seem similar. But Dikshitar ingeniously starts the keer- thanai in suddha daivatam. The continuity of the tune that Illayaraja has maintained in 'idhazhil kadhai ezhudhu', the step by step progression from one swara to another, the development of superb sangathis, each and every bit in that tune is simply excellant. This song is like a milestone in Thamizh cine-music. Gangei Amaran's lyrics is unusually wonderful, matching his another brother paavalar Varadharajan's 'mannil intha kadal' (keladi kanmani). He proved himself a poet in this song!

/end-quote/
(took some liberty & edited the italicized area with achchuppizhai & it's not related to music / song)

I don't have to talk more about the prathAbam of this song Ofcourse, SPB & Chithra at their sweetest! I'm not a big fan of Kamal's arai-kuRai meesai in this movie but the KH-Sita pair is very enjoyable! (Plum will come and say Chiranjeevi & Shobana were better but I have not seen them )

I've watched this movie in Palakkad and concluded "it's ok but not great" but liked the songs very much! We've already talked about the samayal song when discussing maNippur mAmiyAr and won't post it now. Of the other numbers by SPB, obviously this duet is the top one for me. We'll discuss the other numbers in the subsequent posts...

The movie's climax was a big joke to me when a "Rajiv-Gandhi-like" person was used on-screen. We kept laughing in the theater. (May not do so if I watch it today on DVD but never felt like revisiting this movie).