When I listened to the song on radio Manathin muttathe… ( Karutha Pournami ), I thought it was composed by G. Devarajan; it was such a beautiful melody. But, R.K. Shekhar, who assisted Devarajan and almost all the top music directors in Malayalam cinema then, corrected me. He told me it was tuned by a new composer called M.K. Arjunan.
So when V. Dakshinamoorthy, with whom I had formed a formidable combination, refused to do the music for producer K.P. Kottarakkara’s new film, Rest House , I recommended Arjunan. Dakshinamoorthy was upset when the producer told him that he would pay Rs. 1,500 for the job; not that it was a small amount in 1969, but he did not like somebody fixing a price for his music.
Arjunan insisted he would take up the job only if his guru agreed. So we met the great man at Hotel New Woodlands in Chennai. Devarajan told me that I should ensure that the producer would pay Arjunan at least Rs. 1,500. So we began the work on the songs for Rest House. The first song he composed was Pournami chandrika… Kottarakkara, who had doubted whether such an unimpressive looking man would be able to compose music, was mighty impressed. He said Arjunan would compose the music for his next 10 films.
I am proud about the fact that I formed the Sreekumaran Thampi-Arjunan combination, which went on to create about 300 songs in Malayalam cinema.
I know how Arjunan would have felt when Devarajan got the credit for many of his songs, because some of my best songs were credited to Vayalar. One of the reasons for that was that the names of the lyricist and the composer were usually not announced on the All India Radio, which was the most popular medium to listen to songs those days.
(as told to P.K. Ajith Kumar)
