Music maestro Ilaiyaraaja is known for speaking his mind without holding anything back. At times, it has led to severe backlash, but the veteran composer has never heeded any criticism. In a recent interview, on the sidelines of an art exhibition in Chennai, Raja expressed his thoughts about Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan films. It looks like the movies didn’t impress the legend, who claimed that the films didn’t give him the feel of the novel.
Ilaiyaraaja was one of the chief guests of late artist and illustrator Maniam’s art exhibition in Chennai. Maniam is widely known for his illustrations for Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan series, which was published as a series in Kalki magazine for about seven years. Speaking at the event, Ilaiyaraaja praised Maniam’s work and how he and his friends were in love with the world. “My friends including director Bharathiraja were huge fans of the books, and we used to take the book from a lending library nearby. We would only find the second part or the third part as the rest would be with someone else. Kalki’s words and his writings made me fly in my imagination. It was his and Maniam’s illustrations of Kundhavai and Vandhiyathevan that made me dream about the world. And it was not the films. It didn’t feel like the novel at all. Don’t think I am finding faults with it. I have been affected by the book that much. I don’t know how many times I have read the series.”
Ilaiyaraaja also praised how Ponniyin Selvan has been preserved over the years. The composer compared it to the missing notes that he wrote way back during his formative years. “When I wanted to compile all my notes from the past 46 years since Annakili (1976) I couldn’t find a lot of them. I wanted to archive them and I couldn’t find many. And many others are worn out. Many are missing. I don’t who took it or stole it… did they take it to plagiarise it? I don’t know. When I am not able to save the works for just 46 years, the publication has protected Ponniyin Selvan for more than seventy years.”
Ilaiyaraaja is currently scoring music for Vetri Maaran’s Viduthalai Part 2.
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