On Monday, Govind P. Menon got his mother to sing Thekkum Kooradiyathi, a song which had originally come in the movie Aswamedham in 1967 from the Vayalar-Devarajan team. Vasantha Kumari sang to a composition rearranged by her son who then uploaded it on YouTube the same day. Everyone in the family sings. His elder brother Vivek does but not in public. His sister Dhanya writes lyrics of songs that Govind and their dad Peethambaran sing for the now famous band Thaikkudam Bridge. But Govind has stories to tell before the band happened, and stories after that.
Let’s go from front to back. Up front is an excited post from the young bearded bespectacled musician (yes that’s Govind) about composing the background score and title track in a Hindi film called Dobara by Bejoy Nambiar. “But that was a year ago. And it would come as a festival film,” he says.
There is also Oru Pakka Kathai in Tamil where Kalidas Jayaram plays the lead. But what he calls his best work is coming in Geethu Mohandas’s Insha Allah. “When you work in movies by Geethu chechi or Rajeevettan (Rajeev Ravi), you have every freedom with the kind of music you make. In Njan Steve Lopez (directed by Rajeev), I got to do a three-minute violin solo in the climax.”
The last he composed for a Malayalam film was for 100 Days of Love. “To be honest, the song Hridayathin Niramayi I did for the film is one of my least favourites.” He’s staying away from movies for a while. There’s work to do on the band. After their debut album Navarasam, Thaikkudam Bridge is working on an EP. “It’d be softer, there would not be much of a rock flavour,” he says.
It is not easy dividing his time between film music and independent music. “We cannot have rock music in films, it is still not accepted. And on the other hand, we get very little support from other independent musicians. At first they were supportive. But once we became popular, they were critical of us singing covers of film music. They wouldn’t have minded if we had sung covers of Metallica. But music doesn’t know it is film music or independent music. And for most people in Kerala, music means film music. If we had come out with Navarasam before our film covers, we would not have become so popular.”
Govind also found that few independent musicians would share or comment on his songs on Facebook. “Not that it matters. But I have seen them give that kind of support to every other independent musician or band, good and bad. I share all the works that I think are good, regardless of who they are from. I don’t know what wrong we have done that they treat us like this. Once a famous musician posted cuss words on our page.”
But there’s always his family to rely on. His wife Ranjini is also in his list of contributors, writing English lyrics whenever he needs it. “I am not a singer. I have just happened to sing a few songs. I am not even a great violinist. I have learned it the wrong way.”
Govind, as a child, hated the violin. He wanted to learn the guitar. But on the day he went to the music school, the guitar teacher was not there and the violin teacher was. His dad was also keen that he took up the violin. So a reluctant Govind learned classical violin as a schoolboy and later did western violin. “My teacher Ashraf was great but I picked up easy and wrong techniques that will not let me grow beyond a certain level.”
Years later, his mentor Ouseppachan would ask him ithenthanda nee vayikkane (what are you playing)’. He had never let ‘Ous’ sir know that he played the violin. “He is tough but it is the best music school to learn at.” Govind had joined him in Chennai where he went to, after school. He met Gopi Sunder and then Ousepachan and worked as a keyboard programmer.
Even before Chennai, music had been a major part of his life. Growing up in Irinjalakuda, Govind and his siblings would listen to the chenda playing at the nearby Koodalmanikyam and Thripaya Trimurthy Temple. “My close friends were marars and I would learn to play the chenda from them.” But then Govind still hated the violin. He had not played it for several years before picking it up again for Thaikkudam Bridge. And then of course, everything changed.
