From: mchundat@essex.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mathai Chundattu)
Subject: Re: Movie songs
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:14:34 GMT
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

In article <9301221748.AA03637@vishnu.LABS.TEK.COM> vallath@vishnu.labs.tek.com writes:
>
>I find modern Malayalam song lyrics to be horrible.  Somehow
>they try to have some high-sounding words (usually of Sanskrit
>origin) which I, with my limited Malayalam knowledge, have trouble
>following.  And when
>I do follow them, I don't see any meaning in them.

I agree with your statement that old malayalam songs are beautiful. Most
of them uses simple words and themes. Rather, most of the words are
familiar to many people.

On the other hand, I do not think that todays songs are not good
compared to the older ones. It is true that many songs have several new
words in them. Rather than looking at them negatively, I think it is time
we underatand that these are the signs of the development malayalam is
undergoing these days.  As you mentioned in the article many poets use
lots of new words borrowed from other languages especially sanskrit,
tamil etc. These adoption of new wrods in itself is a sign of the
development. 

The problems come because many of us have only the 10th std malayalam in
our heads. None of us carry out our study of malayalam beyond what we
studied in the pre-degree and such. And for the people who opted for
english medium schools the situation is even worse. 

>definitely think that people like Vayalaar and Sreekumaaran
>Thampi chose the song lyrics to suit the movie, the character
>and the situation, and skilfully used the various dialects of
>Malayalam. 

That is true. But we were talking about the songs and not their
relevance to the scene in which they occur. Some examples of very good
songs which uses many of the unfamiliar words in malayalam are the songs
from the movie 'dhwani', which are written by Yusefali Kecheri. Think
about the the following songs.

maanasaniLayil ponnOLannGaL manJjeeradwaniyuNaRthi...

rathisukhasaaramaayi dEvi ninmey~ vaartthoraadaivam kalaakaaran...

jaanakee jaane raamaa jaanakee jaane....

etc.

Arent they beautiful! Even though the movie was worthless it  but became a
hit because of just the songs.

>
>For most of the young people I know, film songs are an
>important part of the music they listen to.  Do today's
>youngsters like the songs they hear, just like I used to like
>songs like "mANikyavInayum ..." or "chakravartinI" or the
>songs from the movie "nellu"?

Yes, they do. I think people listen to songs more these days. Because of
the availability of radios, tape-recorders, videos etc. The main reason
for people not picking up the songs by heart is the mere abundance of
the songs. How many movies! And so many songs in each. There are only
small number of songs which people remember.

Another example of the popularity of new sogns is the welcome received
by tharamgini records etc. What do you think about the songs in that
series? Most of them are very 'high funda' malayalam, most of them use
words from sanskrit and almost all of them are more famous than even the
old songs. 

>
>The tunes are also not that great.  I wonder if it is just
>because we get attached to the songs we hear as teenagers?
>

Probably. It is true that songs seem to have much more meaning for a
teenager!

>Fortunately, the movies are a lot better.  The old ones with
>Sharada's "karachilum pizhichilum" were so depressing.

True. I saw mannJil virinnJa pookkaL again yesterday. Sankar-ne 
koovi vaayil veLLam paTTi!!!

karacchilum pizhicchilum is welcome even now among many of our society.
Especially among women.

>
>Request:
>-------
>
>On another note, can someone send me a recipe for fish cooked
>in banana leaves which they have tried and tested, or at least
>tasted? 

mmm...

>
>Vallath Nandakumar

mathew
-- 


Newsgroups: alt.culture.kerala