M.K. Arjunan, who died in Kochi on Monday at the age of 84, was the last of the master composers from the golden period of Malayalam cinema. He was suffering from age-related ailments.
In a career that spanned over five decades, he tuned about 700 songs, many of them among the biggest hits of all time. He may not have been celebrated as much as G. Devarajan, M.S. Baburaj, V. Dakshinamoorthy or K. Raghavan, but his songs have been. Many of those songs were so good that several listeners believed they were tuned by Devarajan, his guru and one of the greatest composers of Indian cinema.
Arjunan may have been influenced by the style of Devarajan, but he never copied any of his tunes, or of anybody else for that matter. He belonged to an era when Malayalam film music had so many original tunes composed by some brilliantly original music directors.
A compliment
Arjunan once told this writer that he took it as a compliment when his songs were thought to have been composed by Devarajan. “After all, he was our best composer and my guru; and when you work with such a genius for a long time, you are bound to be influenced by him, but I have never copied a single tune.” “I felt proud when I came to know that he had something nice to say about my song Palanimalakkovile… (Pickpocket).”
Arjunan tuned even more popular songs, such as Yadukula rathidevanevide... (Rest House), Kasthoori manakkunnallo kaatte... (Picnic), Nin maniyarayile... (CID Nazir), Chandra rashmi than... (Anweshansm), Sukhamoru bindu...(Ithu Manushyano), Chempaka thaikal pootha... (Kathirunna Nimisham), Kuyilinte maninaadam... (Padmavyooham) and Mallikappoovin madhura gandham... (Honeymoon).
He was among the first to notice the extraordinary gift of A.R. Rahman. He had made the prodigy play the keyboard for him in a few films. Rahman's father R.K. Shekhar had arranged the music for Arjunan for many of his songs.
Arjunan never got his due. Strangely, the only State Award he got – for Bhayanakam – came five decades after he made his debut, with Karutha Pournami.
Now that he has died at a time of lockdown, his fans would not be able to pay their homage by coming together. Some lives are destined to end unsung. Not that Arjunan would have minded.
