Still hitting the high notes

Mollywood playback singer Ganesh Sundaram reflects on his career, the changing trends in music, and his new music academy

Pics: Ganesh Sundaram; with composer Bijibal  

By Shevlin Sebastian 

The evening bhajans were coming to an end at the Vasudevapuram Sree Krishna Swamy temple at Perunna. A group of boys were standing and singing loudly. Suddenly, it started raining. “Let’s go home,” one boy shouted. And the group ran out of the temple at high speed. At the back, there was a six-year-old. As he tried to catch up, he slipped and fell on the muddy road and fainted. 

But in his mind’s eye, he saw Lord Krishna. He was in black and had a tulsi garland, apart from a gold necklace. With a soothing smile on his face, he helped the boy to stand up and led him towards a bend in the road. Then he vanished. 

When Ganesh Sundaram regained consciousness, he was lying on the lap of his grandmother. He quickly told her about his vision. She patted him soothingly on the head. 

Ganesh, the senior Mollywood playback singer, was recounting this incident at his newly-opened music academy called Jani at Tripunithara. “The Krishna I saw was the same as the idol in the temple,” he says. “I may have produced this image out of my subconscious mind.”

At Perunna, living with his grandmother, now and then he would stand at the door and see whether his mother was coming. A teacher, she stayed at Tripunithara with Ganesh’s younger brother. Ganesh had been sent to Peruna when he was three years old because his mother could not handle two children at the same time. Their father worked in the Indian Army and lived mostly in North India. 

“Although I pined for my mother, I was surrounded by music,” he says. “My grandmother had a very sweet voice, and my uncles and aunts sang, too. They would make me go to sleep by singing lullabies. I believed I discovered my destiny there.” 

Later, when Ganesh returned to Tripunithara he began formal coaching lessons in Carnatic vocals, which lasted for several years, through different teachers.     

Ganesh began playing for orchestras and brought out an album. But his major break happened, in 1994, when the owner of Amma Cassettes, Babu Koyiputath, a distant relative, asked him to sing for a devotional album. He did so. Thereafter, about 50 albums came out. However, it was only in 1999, that he had his first hit through the album, 'Guruthipooja'. “The songs are in praise of Bhagawathy Devi of the Chottanikkara temple,” says Ganesh. “It has simple lyrics and catchy tunes, and the public liked it a lot. They feel a sense of peace when they listen to the songs. The album is still selling.”  

Thus far, he has sung over 5000 devotional, love and patriotic songs in languages like Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and Bengali.

Along with that, he has had a thriving playback career in Malayalam films. Some of the films he has sung for include ‘Violin’, ‘Veneesile Vyapari’, ‘Kudumbasree Travels’, ‘Loudspeaker’, ‘Minnaminnikoottam’, ‘Kayamkulam Kanaran’, ‘Sree Rama Rajyam’, ‘Mayakkazhcha Parankimala’, ‘Daivathinte Swantham Cletus’, ‘Vikramadithyan’, ‘Vellimoonga’, ‘Love 24/7’, and ‘Thondimuthalum Dhriksakshiyum’. He has also sung in Jibu Jacob’s upcoming ‘Adyarathri’, in which Biju Menon plays the lead.  

But he says that singers are rarely recognised. “When radio jockeys play our songs they only name the composer and the actors,” says Ganesh. As a result, he had some bitter-sweet experiences. 

Once he had gone for an event in Muscat. Before his performance, Ganesh was sitting in the front row with a Mollywood director. They started chatting. “I told him I am a singer,” says Ganesh. “He said he liked a few songs and named a few. I replied that I had sung those. He looked shocked and said, ‘I thought Bijibal had sung them’.” (Bijibal was the composer). 

Then the opposite happened. One day, a man called up Ganesh and said his son was a big fan of his and wanted to talk to him. Ganesh agreed and the boy said, “Sir, I loved your ‘Idukki’ song in 'Maheshinte Prathikaaram'.” Ironically, it was sung by Bijibal. 

Often, when Ganesh is sitting in a restaurant, the mobile phone will ring at a neighbouring table. “And the ringtone would be one of my songs,” says Ganesh. “But the man would not know that the singer is sitting at the next table.”  

After 25 years in the trade, Ganesh admits the competition is getting stiffer. “There are so many singers these days,” he says. “And young composers prefer singers of their generation.” 

Asked how music trends have changed, Ganesh says, “People don’t like to hear big words or sombre thoughts,” he says. “The words should be simple and direct. There is a lot of electronic music. Of course, purists say the music lacks soul, but like, in any era, there are good songs, too, like ‘Hemanthamen’ from ‘Kohinoor’ and ‘Paripparakkum Kili’ in Aby.”  

Meanwhile, to diversify, Ganesh had opened his academy on August 23 with the help of two partners, Balram Ettikkara and Ramakrishnan KG, who are music lovers. There are classes in Western vocals, guitar, violin, keyboard and piano, apart from Carnatic vocals, violin, mridangam, Hindustani vocals and tabla. “There are a total of 11 teachers,” he says. “I am happy to say that young people are interested in music. So I hope to develop many new talents.”

Asked what Jani means, he says, “A beginning.” 

(The New Indian Express, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode)