Thangavel was an assistant director to Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of the most prominent film directors and screenwriters in Malayalam. For me I was first introduced to him in a library. A small library is located at the foot of the Chennimalai hill. When I first saw him, he was sitting in the library, taking notes in a notebook. I was on my way to visit another friend when I accidentally saw him there. The scene in which he was taking notes remained the same as I went to the library on different occasions.
One day, I went on my own and introduced myself to him. Slowly, the conversation grew between us. Thangavel Anna was a man who was an avid reader of literature and had a deep love for music. He had a very lucid knowledge of composers and music. He was the first music lover I ever met. He had an opinion to say about each of the musicians. He had mastered the personality to give a precise description of what a voice sounds like in music.
I once heard him say, “What is the difference between Rahman’s music and Ilayaraja’s music? Rahman’s music will be a mix of tracks. Ilayaraja’s music has very few musical tracks”. I remember it very well. In a conversation between him and me about music, he said, “Melodies like Ilayaraja’s music are the reason why a lot of murders are prevented. Modern music is responsible for more rape and violent thoughts. Because when so many music tracks go into the mind, that pressure is likely to turn into violence.”
Thangavel and I had a series of meetings. One day, we went to his friend’s room where he was staying. It was a very small room, but there were plenty of books in it. After that, we went to Thangavel’s house. There were a lot of books. Whenever he was unemployed in Chennai and wandering in his native place, he used to go to work for a garment company in the neighbourhood. He was the first to introduce me to Puthumaippiththan. He had a great love for Puthumaippiththan. He was in the habit of reading the same book twenty or thirty times at a stretch.
Most of his books had been stolen from some library or another. The library stamp on each book confirmed it. Each is a library in a different town. In addition to reading books, he had a constant habit of taking notes with a notebook nearby. When he takes notes, he used to keep a small BPL Walkman next to him. There used to be a female voice singing from it. It was the voice of Bombay Jayashri.
That’s where I first got introduced to Bombay Jayashri’s voice. That was always the only voice on the Walkman. I have never seen him listen to any other song. ‘Maalai pozhudhiloru venilisaiye…” The song would be playing in front of him again and again. I think it was a song from Bombay Jayashri’s album ‘Agni’.
One day, in a moderately intoxicated state, he said: “When I was in the sixth standard, my father tied both my hands to a wooden pillar and said a few words about my mother and hanged himself from the ceiling in front of my eyes. But even after that, I had to live with my mother. If the death that happened in front of my eyes and the hatred within me didn’t let me travel negatively, I was travelling in some way in a positive direction, if I can write four or five scenes in a day… It’s all because of this mother’s (Bombay Jayashri) voice. You listen to it again and again!” he told me.
As time passed, ten years later, early one morning, I received the news that Thangavel had committed suicide by falling into a well. I know very well that he can swim very well. If a good swimmer drowns in the water… I cry when I think of how much he would have willingly given his death. To Thangavel, the memory of his father’s suicide that happened in front of his eyes as a child, which did not leave his memories till his own death, if I wonder what would have delayed his life for so long as an interim medicine, those are only two things. One is literature, and the other is Bombay Jayashri’s musical voice!
After that, when I came to Chennai and wandered in different situations… Even though I was in a depression, I had failed in journalism and cinema… What calmed me down was the same album, ‘Agni’ by Bombay Jayashri. Years passed, and as a result of prayers, the dream of Cuckoo Kattupalli began to be fulfilled.
Later, Piyesh, a friend who studied architecture and is a sculptor who travels by stacking stones and making sculptures on the shores and leaving them intact, got married in the forest area of Cuckoo Kattupalli. Piyesh is currently studying Aboriginal homes in Africa. Piyesh is a great admirer of Bombay Jayashri’s music. So, their wedding took place in the dusk in the light of a lamp, with Bombay Jayashri’s musical voice faintly resounding throughout the forest.
I had a small wish in my heart that Bombay Jayashri should also be present during the inauguration of Cuckoo. But at that time, it was Akila who was speaking to Amma (Jayashri) about it via email. When I sent an email that a separate room had been booked for Amma in Tiruvannamalai, she replied, “Isn’t that place where my voice is a prayer also a temple? It would be better to come and stay there. Whatever the place is, I will stay.”. Even after Amma had agreed to attend the inauguration, she could not attend due to a change in dates.
We often think to ourselves that Bombay Jayashree, Sanjay Subramaniam and ‘Baul’ Parvathy will one day sit and sing to the small crowd at the foot of the Cuckoo Hill. It’s our long-standing passion for music. Thus, we feel that we are now hearing the voice of the mother, whom we sing and pray to, nearby. It was this mother’s voice that instinctively accompanied us in the different circumstances of our journey. Listening to her music happens to us as a reflex.
“Amma’s voice is like an old grandmother’s mud house in the village. It will be full of life,” says the architect ‘Mirra’, Arun-Renu, who made the infant in pregnancy listen to Amma’s ‘Jagadho Dhaarana‘ song every day, Prabhakaran Seravanji, who continues to blossom Amma’s musical voice in cyberspace, Minmini Rajaram and ‘irakkam varaamal ponadhenna’ Arunima. We think of all these people at this moment.