Vasudevan’s songs has been nominated for the 88th Academy Award in the Original Song Category.
Madhu Vasudevan
Every line their little boy drew on the walls of a rented house, they had to pay for. Madhu Vasudevan and his family had lived on like in a cage and dreamed of moving to a place of their own. They had a land somewhere, 27 cents of it in a corner of Pathanamthitta. But they lost it, when someone had tricked them with fake proofs.
So when he wrote the song koodu vaykkan kothi kondu/ etho kootil valarnnoru pakshi, Madhu was also writing about his own life. The silver lining comes now, when the song along with three others he wrote for the film Jalam, won the contention for nominations in the Original Song Category for the 88th Academy Awards. The lines roughly translate to ‘A bird that grew in a cage dreamed of building a nest’. “The song reflects the sadness I had felt. In fact, it is a subject people from all over the world would understand — the fight for survival,” says Madhu of Jalam, which is India’s first charity film, produced by Sohan Roy. “A girl — Seethalakshmy — loses everything she had. She dreams of having a land of her own.”
All four songs have a universal character, lyrics wise and music wise. “They are protest songs, fighting the existing system. Music wise, it is a mix of eastern and western elements. Three of these are rendered by Shakthisree Gopalan who has sung for A.R. Rahman. The fourth is by Binni Krishnakumar, a disciple of Dr Balamuralikrishna. She sings Pakalppathichari in ‘Raghupriya’, a raga only Balamuralikrishna has sung in. Ousepachan is the first to use it for a film.”
Madhu owes a lot to Ousepachan for his music, to M. Padmakumar, the director of the film and to Suresh Babu, the scriptwriter, he says. This is the first Malayalam film to be nominated for the Oscars for ‘original song’ and the second Indian film. “The first — Slumdog Millionaire — has been basically a British film taken in the Indian background. Jalam is in that way the first film that is completely Indian, with all its crew from here.”
Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
Next Story
