The Golden Era of Dr.IR and Dr.SPB

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#286 வாழ வைக்கும் காதலுக்கு ஜே!
(அபூர்வ சகோதரர்கள், 1989 , ஜானகியுடன்)

vAzha vaikkum kAdhalukku jAy ('appappA thappukkuththavichchEn' )

With a terrific prelude (almost like "smooth jazz"), the song gets into a breezy start and progresses to 'sokka vaikkum' levels, thanks to the expert singing by the top duet pair! Things rarely go wrong when IR-SPB-SJ are in the label of a Kamal song. It's only a question of "where does this stand in the overall ranking of songs for this great-4-combo". Well, this is somewhere in the middle - not among top 30% or bottom 30%, orchestration is definitely top class but the mettu is not too melodious IMO. Except the couple of lines that come after 'thappukkuththavichchEn' in the saraNam, it's pretty average.

On-screen too, this comes somewhere in the middle for KH-IR-SPB-SJ duets. Ofcourse there's good physics-chemistry-biology between the boy & girl but the setting is very masAlA, i.e. until the hitchhiking part comes. After that, the driver-cleaner fellows dampen the fun. So, the summary rating is around 5 in a scale of 1-10

There's definite brilliance in the screenplay - with the connection of Raja & the corpse of Francis Anbarasu, however. Single Madras to Pondicherry trip-la ivvaLavu creativity-yA? Great fellows! (However, overall, AS pales in comparison to MMKR in the Crazy-KH combo).

The song was a big "youththu" hit those days. And I don't see a reason why it would not become a similar hit if it arrives in the new millennium too, it has aged well IMO - especially the prelude and interludes. thALakkozhuppu may be quite limited but there's this jazziness that is not timebound. BTW, was this the "carrier-first-duet" for the Kamal-Gautami pair? If so, some historical importance there...

The 'vaishAka sandhyE' kadhai too gets on the road now, with the new motorbike that was strictly needed only for a 2 mile commute in the morning, 2+2 miles for lunch (we bachelors had Mr.Cook now) and another 2m back home in the evening, with petrol below Rs 20, 50-60 kmpl & not too much worries about money. The end-result was total abuse of the vaNdi, with carefree roaming around for hours in the evening - often for what my manager used to call "vAy nOkkAn pOyOdO?"

Well, it was not always fun - actually one evening during the early bike days was a disaster. Coming out of the workplace in the evening on panchayat road, me and the pillion saw the "birds" standing for bus (including 'the girl') and tried a stylish curving entry into the highway without noticing the sand on road, skidding and crashing like stupids! With left indicator broken & "painttu pOyi" on elbow (for both of us), it was a huge embarassment in front of the girls. arakkappaRakka got up and rushed out of the scene with shame, not looking at left or right!

While the shame prevented looking at her the next day for a while, addiction prevailed and I had to give up. The sadness & parivu in her eyes made me feel "friendly" and for the first time she looked beautiful. What followed was worse - every now and then I started trailing the bus until she got down in her stop The first time she saw me in her village bus-stop stunned her (obvious on the face) and it took a few moments before a smile (sneer?) can be exchanged! Since I didn't want the pillion friend to know of my eye-addiction, the rides were termed "trips to dam" (her stop was on the way) until the real reason was opened out to him during a Kingfisher (or Golgonda Ruby) session. His reaction? "What is life without such kiRukkuththanams, man? " So, that's how he became the person to have a great deal of knowledge about the whole thingy

He was such a nice friend though, gave me company in rain and shine during such foolish trips for a smile / sneer (and nothing more)! Well, he had some "fringe benefits" too - like the continuation of the ride to Malampuzha for some pleasant evenings...like that one day thrillingly following a bus full of Kottayam beauties who waved to us. We spent hours walking / sitting / standing around them in the garden (it was thrilling to hear their 'enthu rasam ee paiyyans' remark) and a lot of waving / smiling etc. In the end, they invited us to share their dinner which we politely (shyly) refused but they insisted in at least giving us two packets of food (collected while riding the bike parallel to the running bus, thru window ). Those packets helped us realize the fact that one need not eat tasty - may be should even have awful grub - to be beautiful...

Well, in short, for a while there were lot of comical stuff in life - until the power above decided 'enough is enough'. (thodarum)