It’s
been a long time since Rahman played to
the gallery. He tried it in Blue and other
recent ventures of his, only to be caught
between experimentation and cacophony.
With S.J. Suryah, Rahman did get back
to the balance that he used to maintain
in his hay days of commercial cinema where
the songs regardless of the experimentation
were always foot tapping and catchy; pleasing
everyone. Though the audacity of the director
to don the grease pant was frustrating,
it was sheer pleasure to witness them
on silver screen with all the gloss and
not the mellowed down situational ones
where the songs were pushed to the background.
Having Pawan Kalyan in Komaram Puli does
guarantee that the visual segment of the
song will surely be entertaining. And
the songs? Lets get to them one at a time.
Power star (Vijay Prakash, Tanvi Shah)
Techno songs are always not easy on ears.
With Rahman at fore we know, with the
kind of experimentation (ring tones, car
crash et al) it is bound to be bizarre.
It starts with the drums beating to the
well known police theme in Arabic influence
fused with synthesized sounds, creating
an eerie feel whispering ‘power
star’. It’s a cocktail of
sorts after that, when the ream of lyrics
patronizing the ‘Yuva star’
moves from the electronic feel to folkish
style, backed by the genre trademark ‘organ’.
Any hero worship song from Rahman is not
complete with the “hai hai”
sound and here it is combined with “blue
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cry, reminding us of the blue theme. The beauty of
this cocktail is that after getting the grasp and
when the familiarity sinks in, the peppy adulating
lyrics and the intricate modulations especially whenever
Vijay intensifies the mood as he acclimates to the
top scale, grabs our attention
Amma thale (Naresh Iyer, Swetha Mohan)
There is the celerity and then the melody. It seems
to be repeating in loops. So what is this song? Doesn’t
it sound like it was poorly tacked together? If you
stop right there, then you are going to miss something
special. As we take that notion away, the celerity
becomes a breathless travel into the nooks in whips,
pacing our heart only to be soothed by the melody.
But the melody now doesn’t remain only that;
it becomes more of a funny retaliation to the rambling
antecedent and the fun increases with the curt notes
of the violin & trumpet. So what if the celerity
is borrowed by “thee kurugiya” song from
Kangalal Kaithu Sei with heavy accent from “markandeya”
of New; when each complete note of that saranam layered
using different instruments, attention turns to the
variation that Swetha brings to the note joined later
by Naresh. Though Naresh intensifies the tune to a
great level, the “na nana na” hampers
the flow, only to be saved by the faithful trumpet
with which Naresh swiftly transforms the song into
a classical one at the coda.
Maaralante (A.R.Rahman & KMMC Choir)
Maaralante is a double treat in that it will become
the anthem of Andhravalas and as a song that will
become the identity of Power star for the rest of
his life. What is with Rahman and patriotic songs?
When he sings them, even the average tune raises goose
bumps and with lyrics which highlight the importance
of change, the impact is even more, acclimating to
greater heights when he touches the top note for rendering
“maa telugu thalli” backed by the cherubic
choir; reminding us the “mannipaya” of
VTV effect. Rahman takes the song to the next level
when he increases the tension using carefully arranged
instrument in the other half of the song, which when
we thought was the best it could get to, knocks us
out with the superb placement of Chandrabose’s
punch line as the finale.
Maham Mahamaye (Javed Ali, Suchitra)
Sometimes we just have to hand it over to the guys
behind the microphone and let them enthrall us. Even
though Maham Mahamaye seems to be Shankar Mahadevanish,
Javed Ali gets into the groove and comes up with a
rendering that is packed with passion and gusto. The
consistently flat Suchitra is beautified with disciplined
singing that falls between zeal and childish joy.
The alternation between staccato and the melodic note
of the pallavi that the singers perform in the later
part of the saranams, the majestic symphony in violin
and the confluence of these two towards the finale,
ends the song in a content note.
Dochy (Shreya Ghoshal, Lady Kash 'N' Krissy)
Gangster blues seems to have become police blues for
this club number. The rustic & erotic mood initiated
by Krissy carries over to Shreya Goshal which she
blends well with the wiggling setup of the notes leaving
us in trance. The way she renders lowering notes of
“aashaalatho anveshanatho aapai aapai adigai”
and then climbs higher only to touch down safely into
our heart, makes us forget that this is just an item
number. The Arabic orchestration with organ sneaking
in between at equal intervals under the aegis of synthesizers
takes us to an elevated state; not to mention the
firing sounds and the prickling guitar that fills
the entirety of the song.
Namakame (Chitra, Madhushree, Harini)
Should there be only one tune, when a lady is praying
to the God? Why does Rahman repeat the same tune be
it in Lagaan, Swades, Jodha Akbar (interestingly all
Ashutosh Gowarikar films), Connections and now in
Komram Puli? Lack of novelty apart, the choice of
different voice whenever there is a change in the
notes and different combinations of them makes the
age old song intriguing and when Chitra takes over
with an alaap backed by mouth organ like sounding
trumpet we are sent back to the Duet days
Harish S Ram
tornado.harish@gmail.com
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