By
Shevlin Sebastian
A few
months ago, Mollywood music composer Sharreth woke up one morning
feeling guilty. He remembered that lyricist Sasikala Menon had sent
him the words of a few folk songs several weeks earlier. And he had
not done anything about it.
So
Sharreth went to his harmonium, and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., he sat and
wrote the tunes for all the nine songs. “I was in an inspired
state,” he says. “Sasikala had written them well. Four songs have
western accompaniments. I wanted to make it attractive to the modern
generation.”
But
when Sharreth came across one particular lyric, ‘Kannu karuthu
mukham veluthu' (Black eyes and fair face), he decided to do it in
the 'a capella' style. Which means that there is no music. The
singers use their hands to clap and stamp their feet to make sounds.
This has become a popular video on You Tube.
For
this song, Sharreth called on a group of youngsters who had been
contestants in a music programme on TV, as well as Amrutha Suresh, a
bright young Mollywood talent.
“Usually
when I sing with Sharreth Sir, there is some kind of music
accompaniment,” says Amrutha. “But for this song, I noticed that
there was nothing. I could not understand what he was doing. To sing
without any music is challenging. And after I had finished, he did
not let me hear it. It was a puzzle.”
In
fact, Amrutha never knew that it was an 'a capella' song. Later, when
Sharreth sent Amrutha the song, she was shocked. “I never imagined
the song would turn out like this,” she says. “It was an unique
experience.”
The
name of the CD, brought out by East Coast Audios, is also unique. It
is called 'StrawberryTheyyam'. “This was suggested by the actor
Anoop Menon,” says Sasikala. “It is a nice mix of the East and
the West.”
The
lyrics are unusual. It is about the life of the tribals of Kerala. “I
had only written devotional songs,” says Sasikala. “So I wanted
to move into a new direction. I did a lot of research about the
tribals and then wrote the lyrics. One song is a Ganapati hymn of the
Adivasis. Another is of children as they watch their mother
harvesting the paddy while lightning strikes the sky. Some are about
love.”
In
fact, Sasikala had purposely sent it to Sharreth as she felt that he
was the one who could do justice to it. “He has an unique style,”
says Sasikala. “I knew he would do it in a different way than any
other composer.”
Incidentally,
for the other songs, Sharreth used established singers like Afzal,
Vidhu Pratap, Jyotsna, Nisha, Pradeep Palluruthy and the actress,
Remya Nambeesan.
Meanwhile,
when asked about his experience, Sharreth says, “The charm of doing
an album is that you have creative freedom. When I work for a film, I
have to listen to the story and do the song according to the mood. I
also have to obey the director who is the captain. But in an album,
you don't have to listen to anybody. You can try some
experimentation, and nobody is there to object to it.”
(Sunday Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and New Delhi)
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