Director Bhimsingh had established a nice team around making simple, family themed melodramas usually starring Sivaji Ganesan in the lead with Savitri, Gemini Ganesan, Devika, Balayya, Ranga Rao, Thangavelu and Chandrababu making regular appearences as well. "Paava manippu" came after "Pathi bhakthi" which was the director's first big success. But this was the film which really established the Bhimsingh theme of "small family stories". And of course, it boasted of sensational music.
Viswanathan Ramamoorthy had delivered brilliantly for Bhimsing in "Pathi bhakthi" but even by their own exalted standards, "Paava manippu" was a stunner. Every song in the track is worth treasuring for centuries and milleniums.. TMS, P.Suseela and P.B.Srinivas all at the peak of their powers. My favorites from this track :
vandha naaL mudhal : TMS is awesome. Kannadasan pens a critical take on humans and even a Tamil illiterate like me is wondered by these words :
paravaiai kaNdaan vimaanam padaiththaan
paayum meengalil padaginaikkandaan
edhiroli kaettaan vaanoli padaiththaan
edhanaikkandaan panamdhanaip padaiththan
A poor translation :
<i>he saw the birds and invented planes
the leaping fishes gave him the idea of boats
echoes he heard and created the radio
what did he see to create money</i>
I have always felt that the last line in the stanza we hear is an edited or a resung version - a badly done one at that. If you hear the stanza, the sound of the last line stands out obviously. What did Kannadasan actually pen in there ? I recall having heard somewhere "madhangaLai padaiththaan" instead of "panamdhanaip padaiththan" (meaning religions or castes). I wonder...
paal irukkum [Youtube] : A superlative Suseela solo going on Devika. The prelude music to the melody is a representative of the composers duo's orchestral finesse and the reason why they were such a revolution in Tamil cinema. So breezy, yet it hits you where it should.
aththaan ennaththaan : Perhaps the most famous Tamil song ever. Lata Mangeshkar's statement at the time to this song being one of her favorites raised this song's popularity all over the country and it has acquired a cult status, a song synonmous with the romance of a shy girl. Wonderful lyrics . superlative composition and subdued orchestration and beautiful singing.. perfection.
Other superb songs in the track include TMS' "silar siripaar silar azuvaar" and P.B.Srinivas' "kaalangalil aval vasantham". It is interesting that though this film has Gemini Ganesan in just a supporting role, the PBS song has become the definitive Gemini Ganesan song. No retrospect of PBS or Gemini Ganesan can ever be complete without a mention of this hugely popular melody.
A stellar soundtrack.. one of my all-time favorites !!
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