Was SPB real?

 

People come and go. Death is indeed a part of life but still it is never easy to handle it when it comes to your dear ones. SPB is not family or friend but the loss seems more. One set of people are mourning his death, another set is celebrating his life. I am the greedy type who want to celebrate his glorious life (career) as well have him. Yes, want to have the cake and eat it too. Not often do you get a person like that who made such a difference to your life; who made you shed happy and sad tears with equal measure through the body of work. Many people are speechless, word-less at this moment but I feel like having so much to say.

When legends, great men depart at an old age, you feel bad, but move on. One of the reasons for that is the time elapsed since their prime would be 10-15 years before their death. Think of K Balachander and you know what I am referring here. With SPB, the grief is more profound as he was still doing stage shows and singing 15+ songs in one evening with near the same quality, giving a sense of disbelief

The frequency of his singing in films came down sharply from 2010s or bit before that with the advent of young male leads, composers and singers. While I always felt he would have done justice to these new-age songs (hear Koorakku Krellikere from Nenappirali or pudhiya manidha from Endhiran), I wasn’t complaining much for two reasons-1. He has had a lion’s share of songs from late 70s to 90s, you almost wanted him to give way to the next generation of singers and 2. He was so visible on the small screen (ennodu paatu padungal, vaanampadi, edhe thumbi haaduvenu, appearances in super singer-especially when he and Chithra are both around), in the internet (caught up with many a stage show here) and the plethora of interviews-my personal favs are Vijay TV Sangamam, Bosskey TV and Gaana Yanna. We got to know his personality, humility, nicety a lot from these shows and what many people say about him is just a validation. He never missed an opportunity to praise his peers, seniors, composers, lyricists etc. some people can’t praise others though they may hold them in high esteem. This is exemplified in Raja’s video messages since SPB’s hospitalisation. Watching the footage (from a recording session) of their reunion after the bitter events on copyrights (Raja-initiated of course), one felt that Raja had a sense of guilt of doing what he did to his old friend

On his accomplishments in Tamil, his songs with MSV, Ilayaraja, Rahman, Rajan-Nagendra, Deva (the stunning Rajni intro songs and the uber cool gaanas from Indhu), Vidyasagar (the stunning melodies), Hamsalekha to name a few are deservingly legendary but one should also experience his gems with others like Shanker-Ganesh (my favs are unnai naan paarthathu, samsaaram adhu minsaaram title song, pournami neram from palaivana cholai, amman kovil therazhagu etc.), T Rajendar (various), Chandrabose (medhuva medhuva oru kadhal paatu, songs from AVM+Rajni movies), SV Ramanan (Vaanil vaazhum devadhai), Manoj/Gyan (Andhi nera thendral kaatru) etc. For me there are so many unexplored songs and am already on the hunt. Thanks to folks like Baradwaj Rangan and Smule am exposed to a lot of his great songs from the old times (e.g. nitham nitham en kannoram, thamaraikkodi, venmegam mannil vandhu, oru kunguma chengamalam, nandhavanam poothirukkidhu). As Kamal pointed out in his tribute, there are enough songs for 100 years if we covered one SPB song a day

I have been fortunate to know his exploits in Kannada as well. In fact, he has revealed that the love he has got in Karnataka is unparalleled. As the story goes, Vishnuvardhan wouldn’t sign a movie contract without the point that SPB would croon his songs. Who can forget Neera bittu neladha mele, jeeva veene needu midithadha santhosha, noorondhu nenapu, ee bhoomi bannadha buguri to name a few? Agree that he had hits in Hindi as well but to me, he is always the king of TN, Andhra, Telangana and Karnataka. With the quantity of songs he did in these three languages, I was surprised when someone mentioned that KJ Yesudas has sung more songs than SPB. With due respect to KJY- he was the king in Kerala and singing niche numbers in other southern states and Hindi, SPB was ubiquitous on the audio cassettes during mid-70s to mid-90s in 4 of the 5 southern states. If you followed the songs of the top heroes of 70s through 90s-Rajni, Kamal, Vijayakanth, Mohan, Sathyaraj, Prabhu, Karthik, T Rajendar in Tamil, Vishnuvardhan, Anant Nag, Sreenath, Shankar Nag, Ravichandran in Kannada (yes, SPB missed out on Dr.Raj who was an accomplished singer himself covering most of his songs ever since he filled in for PB Sreenivas once), Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna, Balakrishna et al in Telugu (my exposure to Telugu songs is not much beyond the Raja compositions in late 80s and early 90s+shankarabharanam), no way he would have sung less songs than anyone else. Of course, quantity is not what he will be known for vis-à-vis the peerless quality

Continuing the topic of his on-screen heroes, I can imagine Rajni’s struggle to match the energy pumped in by Balu in his intro songs. Sivakumar admitted that he requested the shoot of Uchi Vagundhethu (rosappu ravikkaikaari) to be pushed to the end of the schedule to mentally prepare to match the emotions delivered by SPB in the song recording. How hard it would have been for Mohan trying to match SPB’s expressions in the songs? One actor who relished the challenge was Kamal as they complemented each other so well, word for word, chuckle for chuckle, expression for expression (the tiny list of vaanam keezhe vandhal enna, unna nenachen paatu padichen, unakkenna mela nindrai, kamban emandhan is still a statistically significant sample). Would have loved to see how Kamal would have emoted the chuckle in the middle of “mugavarigaL thavariyadhal azhudhidimo (it comes here), adhu mazhayo” or “kaaman kovil siraivaasam, kaalai ezhundhaale (little laugh) parigaasam”. That he managed to squeeze his trademark expressions in water-tight Raja compositions, speaks to his talent

His collaborations with K Balachander are unforgettable. It didn’t matter if the composer was MSV (ninaithale inikkum, avargal, aval oru thodarkathai etc.) or Raja (Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal, Punnagai Mannan, Unnal Mudiyum Thambi etc.) or ARR (Duet) or Keeravani (vaaname ellai, jaadhi malli, azhagan) the songs are evergreen. Remains a puzzle to me, it took almost 4-5 movies for SPB to sing in Bharathiraja’s movies despite them being close pals even before Bharathiraja got his direction chance. They did make amends later (nizhalgal, kadhal oviyam, alaigal ovyadhillai etc.)

Another memorable combination is that with Vairamuthu (VM). There are so many memorable anecdotes that one can recall. VM mentioned that he wanted Balu to sing his first song (not sure if there is much truth to this as Raja would call the shots for his songs, more so with a debutant lyricist) as he was in love with SPB hearing songs like Thoduvadhenna thendralo (composed by GK Venkatesh who has done some amazing songs in Kannada and some great ones in Tamil like “then sindhudhe vaanam”)..VM recalls the interaction during the recording of Vannam Konda Vennilave where SPB looked at the lyrics first and told that such a song can’t be penned by someone who hasn’t loved at least once. After the recording, VM would go on to tell SPB that such a rendition is not possible from anyone who has not been in love multiple times. For someone who has been an ardent fan of both, it was quite uncomfortable to enjoy the footage of the show SPB did with only VM songs (in his presence) in 2019 after all that happened around Me Too. VM’s best tribute to SPB came in a Q&A in Kumudham where he was asked to compare KJ Jesudas and SPB. He replies that “kadhalithu konde saagachollum kural Jesu, saagum bodhum kaadhalikachollum kural Balu”. Even-steven !

For 80s/90s kids with a special liking to songs of 60s and 70s, SPB is demi-god. His exit will now force his admirers like myself to dig into the rich treasures of his less-known old songs to miss him even more.

My 4-year-old son has grown up on his Tamil and Kannada songs and can even imitate what SPB thatha would have done to a song sung by another singer. He adds the trademark chuckle, giggle to explain that. It will be a regret that I won’t be able to take him to a live SPB concert. Took it for granted that I would attend a concert when he turned 10 or so (SPB would have been 80 yet singing incredibly well). It is another regret that I didn’t attend enough of his live concerts from the time I started earning a salary (there aren’t many other things that are more valuable or money’s worth). Experiencing him sing live on 3 occasions only is certainly my fault only