It is true this man is arrogant, narcissistic, disrespectful, condescending, incorrigible sometimes, brazenly proud, and egoistic, but damn it! – he is a musical genius the likes of which are rare to come by. What do we do with such a man? Do we crucify him for his public persona, his sudden bursts of anger, his sarcastic jibes at others, his sense of himself as a chosen child of the Divine, his constant drumbeat proclaiming his superior musical capabilities, or do we just forget all that, and love the man for the sheer musical exuberance, unbridled creativity, and breathtaking prolificity of his musical compositions spanning nearly half a century? How do we process this phenomenon of Ilayaraaja, the musical composer from southern India, who turned eighty years of age a few weeks ago? It is difficult. On the one hand, his music holds you in thrall whenever you listen to it, and on the other hand, there is the man himself, who has evolved over the years into something beyond just an artist, he is an institution by himself with all its flaws, beauty and controversies. But let’s focus on his music. We can excuse our geniuses. The world will be a poorer place if we cannot tolerate their idiosyncrasies and eccentricities; after all, their work provides solace and balm to our burdened lives. Would Beethoven have composed the immortal 5th symphony if the patrons had not borne his bursts of temper? Would Michaelangelo ever have painted the Sistine chapel, if the Pope had curbed his insolence? Could Pandit Ravi Shankar have created his magic without people close to him suffering his infidelities? These are difficult questions to answer. But if the history of creativity has anything to teach us, it is this: the font of creativity often finds its home in personalities that are conflicting in nature. It is perhaps it is those very opposing forces that rage within a genius, which also opens up the gateway of creativity. Who knows? Our job is to enjoy, relish and bask in the fruits of their labor.
I cannot remember a day in my life without Ilaayaraja’s music wafting in the air around me. I may not have consciously identified the composer until I was eight or ten years old, but his music has surrounded and haunted me since I was a toddler. One of my earliest memories is how the lilting melody of “Annakili Unnaithedudhe”, one of Ilayaraaja’s first film compositions, held my attention, even though I barely understood the words or the sentiments expressed. The mellifluous voice of Janaki and the sublime strings in the composition took me to a different place, I can’t define where or what, but something happened during those four minutes, a strange stirring of emotions that I couldn’t name or identify at that young age. As I grew up, in the late seventies, eighties, and nineties, those were Raja’s years. He ruled. There was no emotion he couldn’t invoke through his music. The fertility of his genius was so overflowing, that even movies which could barely muster any viewership on their own, would draw huge crowds only to listen to the maestro’s background score and scintillating compositions – even if the picturization of the song was pathetic. It didn’t matter, because the music subsumed all the deficiencies of the movie, the viewer was transformed into an active listener, and the sounds of the flutes, violins, and percussions filled the aesthetic deficiencies left by the images on the screen. It is beyond any doubt or question that Ilayaraaja’s film background scores rank among the finest in the field. Unlike the west, where background music composers have albums of their own and gather a good listener base, the Indian industry hasn’t paid enough attention to what a background music score can do for a film. Just like John Williams, Joe Hisashi, or Jerry Goldsmith in the West, Ilayaraja’s understanding of the place, value, and the specifics of sound in the visual medium are exemplary. Few composers can manage to elevate a pedestrian visual sequence to an ecstatic experience as Raja can. He can blend moving images and musical notes into a stunning fusion. And furthermore, ilayaraaja has scored music for over a thousand movies, against the hundred or fewer movies the great western composers have under their belt. The sheer quality and the quantity of Raaja’s musical output puts him in a league that is hard to match for generations to come, and he is still going strong. One wonders about the richness of his legacy when Raaja decides to hang his boots? – or will he ever hang his boots? At eighty years, in a concert last week held in his honor, he still looks as determined, focused, creative, and passionate as ever. His short diminutive stature, powerful eyes, a steady voice, and clad in customary white still command a presence that is hard to miss.
One of the defining qualities of Raaja is the sublime harmony that runs through his music. There is an unbroken continuity in each composition that keeps the listener riveted to the melody and its musical underpinnings. Even when subtle tonal changes occur, they appear so seamlessly woven into the texture of the composition, that it is often difficult to point out when the lilting strains of the violins fade and transition into the melodious flute, for instance. In Douglas Hofstadter’s wonderful book ” Godel, Escher, and Bach”, he points out how Bach’s fugues, Escher sketches, and Godel’s mathematics have this elusive quality of morphing into different forms right under our noses. Raaja’s music has this quality as well. His compositions are heavily influenced by Johann Sebastian bach, the great western musical composer. Evidence of Bach’s symphonic elements can be observed in many of Raaja’s songs, especially in the string sections of the music. In the 1986 Album ” How to name it”, Raja’s first non-film album, out of the ten compositions( each piece an intricate tapestry of music that produces goosebumps even today ) two were based on Bach’s compositions. Raaja aptly named the pieces “I met Bach in my house” and ” we had a talk”. His love affair with the western classical canon was evident even in those early days. The interludes in Raja’s songs are never just musical fillers ( as it normally is in Indian film songs) but elaborate and intricate musical constructions based on exquisite classical patterns – an eclectic mix of western and Indian genres. Raja is perhaps the only music composer in the Film industry who writes down the entire music first, for all the parts, before the musicians can record. This indicates a gifted musical sense, an understanding of different kinds of instruments, the sound and scope of each, and above all, kaleidoscopically creative imagination to be able to conjure the entire piece in the head and then on paper before the orchestra can perform and record the musical number. To compose in this manner, day in and day out, for decades, sometimes recording four or five songs a day, with the same commitment and focus, is nothing short of breathtaking and speaks volumes of the musical life the maestro has lived.
I deliberately avoid talking about Raja’s outstanding songs because, in Raja’s case, the number of such songs would run into hundreds. As mentioned before, in the last few decades of the 20th century, when Raja was in his prime, almost every song he composed had some merit. In those halcyon days, just having Raja’s name on a cinema poster guaranteed success. Producers began their productions only when Raja gave his nod to a project, the heroes and heroines were selected later. Raja’s fiery discipline, the process of making music, and the ease with which he could turn up tunes, are legendary. A man with absolutely no vices, he would reach the recording studio at 6 AM in the morning. After listening to the scene narrated to him, he would gently run his hand across his harmonium keys to get into the grove, and within a short time the central tune is ready; then follows a period of silence, when nobody is allowed to speak or even make so much a sound in his presence. This is the time the maestro will write down the musical parts in his precise and affirmative handwriting. Entire musical movements flash before his mind’s eye, and he transcribes what he sees on paper. Within an hour or so, the job is done, and the musical notes are distributed to the orchestra for a quick rehearsal. Normally, the rehearsal is flawless, except for a couple of adjustments here and there. The piece is now ready to be recorded and the Master moves on to another composition. It was not unusual those days for Raaja to complete the music for a whole movie in a single day, and the all songs brimming with musical brilliance. Though Raaja predominantly composed music for Tamil films, I personally believe, some of his best work happened in the Telugu movies. A certain flamboyance, an uninhibited exuberance characterizes his scores in the Telugu language. It is perhaps the beauty of the Telugu tongue, especially for music, which added the extra charm to Raja’s songs, but there is no denying the fact that there was something in his Telugu songs that brought a different and sumptuous flavor not found anywhere else in his music.
It is quite unfortunate, however, that other parts of India have remained fairly oblivious to Raaja’s talent. Except for a handful of Hindi movies, notably Sadma, which was a great hit ( a remake of a Tamil classic), and a few other films, Raaja limited his work to the south. But the rest of the world knows Raaja well. Orchestras from Europe, especially the London Symphony Orchestra ( LSO) have played Raja’s work, and there are many enthusiastic listeners in the west who love the range, melodic structure, and therapeutic value of his music. When the music of Dalapathi, the 1990 Rajnikanth blockbuster, came out, it was hailed as one of the best musical compositions and featured on the music charts. BBC included one specific number in the album among its top ten rankings for the year. International orchestras who have regularly worked with Raja attest to his musical genius and his profound understanding of the symphonic components of music. If Raja’s prolific talent wasn’t wholly absorbed in film music, would he have devoted his life to the classical genre? That again is a difficult question to answer. Composing for films is the surest way to musical stardom in India, and for a boy born and brought up in a remote village in South India, and the only exposure to music is through listening to film music played on the radio, he wouldn’t have had much choice in deciding where his talent should be deployed. The musical blessing he amply possessed had to find its vent in film music only, though I sometimes feel, listening to him during interviews, that he doesn’t relish the fact that his work should be defined only by its commercial popularity, but rather be known for the depth and technique of his compositions and the unconditional acceptance of his music by those in the classical world. This craving to belong and be thought of as a classical musician is a noticeable trait in the master. and has come under some criticism over the years.
But all those aspects are inconsequential, what matters is the body of work he has created so far. There is no emotion or stage of life untouched by his music. His songs are companions in joy, in sadness, in tragedy, in love, in making love, in contemplation, as a lullaby, during idle reminiscence, and many more emotional nuances. His music grows on you with each hearing, and there is a healing quality to his well-crafted notes. In an earlier essay on music, I wrote that only those film songs can achieve immortality when they can be listened to and enjoyed as a standalone composition, outside the optics of the film for which the song is composed. The best film composers can boast of a few dozen songs that fall within this category, but in Raja’s case, there are hundreds of such songs, and many more not yet widely known. Like his mentor M S Vishwanathan, from whom Raja picked up the baton of south Indian film music, he has carved so many delicate and well-chiseled pieces of music, self-contained, revealing, and compositions destined to stand the test of time.
Raja’s musical output had decreased in the last few years, and so has the quality of his musical ideas. But that is inevitable. At eighty years, he has done enough to last for generations. Beethoven composed his ninth symphony when he was tone-deaf. We can never define the limits of genius. I would still like to think that there are many, many more active years of composing left in Ilayaraja. Raja has been too much a part of our lives to think of him and his work in the past tense. His music will continue to nourish us.