Yesterday when I was clearing out my trash (read as memorabalia) I found a movie ticket from 1997. Minsaara Kanavu -Jyoti theatre :-) memories came flooding by. 20 years later, I managed to catch Minsaara Kanavu playing on TV today and was
once again swept away by the sheer magic of a Rahman-Vairamutthu
combination. The year was a year unspoilt by CDs and MP3
downloads, a year where adolescence was just about brimming over and
even the slightest hint of attention would send the heart aflutter.
Minsaara Kanavu is a movie that one would like for absolutely no
reason... it is like this childhood crush you have and wouldn't know
why. No logic... it simply was. But the music... ahh! What bliss! I
still remember being haunted by Vennilavae for months after the audio
cassette was made available to us, no infinite loop play nor repeat
mode, it was good old rewind forward, 'tape gets stuck? get a pencil to
fix' type of time. Today when the song played, it still did something to
me. This is a brilliant composition layered with meanings and
generously sprinkled with oodles of love. Hariharan and Sadhana Sargam come together in this poem penned by Vairamutthu
Watch the song here:
This is the song comes at the point where Kajol falls in love with
Prabhudeva and therefore the song is saddled with the responsibility to
make believe in a love like that. Delivers it to perfection. The very
opening is an allegory to the hero's plight... he is falling for someone
way above his league thus the well phrased "Vennilavae Vennilavae
Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya" and the fear of being found is imminent as he
says "indha boologatthil yaarum paarkum munnae unnai adhikaalai anuppi vaipom..."
The romance blooms as he talks about a time which is neither darkness nor light, and appeals to his love not to bat an eyelid for some flowers may bloom in a wink... this part reminds me of Tagore's Gitanjali 47 "The night is nearly spent waiting for him in vain. I fear lest in the morning he suddenly come to my door when I have fallen asleep wearied out" and then the plea of the lover asking her to partake in his ecstatic exchange of love, "boologam ellaamae thoongi pona pinne pullodu poo veezhum osai ketkum penne naam iravin madiyil pillaigal aavom paalutta nilavundu..." nature is the only one who understands this spontaneous love, this helpless romance and therefore he invites her to become children in the lap of the night where the moon would nurture them only after the earth has fallen asleep and in that great stillness one can hear the flower fall on the grass. Lovely!
Continuing the image of that which is within the reach yet not withing one's grasp, the lyrics move to ask "ettaadha uyaratthil nilavai vaitthavan yaaru kaiyyodu sikkaamal kaattrai vaitthavan yaaru" Kajol's bad footwork complements her state of mind and shock at the discovery of sudden love. Then as if to answer these questions and add to the rhetoric she says "poongaatru ariyaamal poovai thirakkavendum poo kooda ariyaamal thenai rusikka vendum" and dispensing her worries to do things in secret he holds her in abandon and says "ulagai rasikka vendum naan un pondra pennodu" . The camera pans, zooms in and there they are locked in a moment that feels like eternity, lovestruck and carefree. The world around them is no more asleep, it is alive with onlookers, the night, light, darkness, the sky and their own half souls. We almost forget the purpose of the two coming to that dingy sit out as we watch them dance (to a choreography that earned Prabhudeva his National Award) happy, in love and carefree. Vennilavae is surely A.R.Rahman's love language. The story might have taken a twist at this point but for us even after twenty years we remain frozen in the aftermath of that moment, that unkissed, undeclared moment under the moonlight where darkness, light and love come together to tempt us into heeding to the call of "vinnai thaandi varuvaaya"
The romance blooms as he talks about a time which is neither darkness nor light, and appeals to his love not to bat an eyelid for some flowers may bloom in a wink... this part reminds me of Tagore's Gitanjali 47 "The night is nearly spent waiting for him in vain. I fear lest in the morning he suddenly come to my door when I have fallen asleep wearied out" and then the plea of the lover asking her to partake in his ecstatic exchange of love, "boologam ellaamae thoongi pona pinne pullodu poo veezhum osai ketkum penne naam iravin madiyil pillaigal aavom paalutta nilavundu..." nature is the only one who understands this spontaneous love, this helpless romance and therefore he invites her to become children in the lap of the night where the moon would nurture them only after the earth has fallen asleep and in that great stillness one can hear the flower fall on the grass. Lovely!
Continuing the image of that which is within the reach yet not withing one's grasp, the lyrics move to ask "ettaadha uyaratthil nilavai vaitthavan yaaru kaiyyodu sikkaamal kaattrai vaitthavan yaaru" Kajol's bad footwork complements her state of mind and shock at the discovery of sudden love. Then as if to answer these questions and add to the rhetoric she says "poongaatru ariyaamal poovai thirakkavendum poo kooda ariyaamal thenai rusikka vendum" and dispensing her worries to do things in secret he holds her in abandon and says "ulagai rasikka vendum naan un pondra pennodu" . The camera pans, zooms in and there they are locked in a moment that feels like eternity, lovestruck and carefree. The world around them is no more asleep, it is alive with onlookers, the night, light, darkness, the sky and their own half souls. We almost forget the purpose of the two coming to that dingy sit out as we watch them dance (to a choreography that earned Prabhudeva his National Award) happy, in love and carefree. Vennilavae is surely A.R.Rahman's love language. The story might have taken a twist at this point but for us even after twenty years we remain frozen in the aftermath of that moment, that unkissed, undeclared moment under the moonlight where darkness, light and love come together to tempt us into heeding to the call of "vinnai thaandi varuvaaya"
