The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Kerala loses a master lyricist

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Monday, Feb 26, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Kerala loses a master lyricist

C. Gouridasan Nair

P. Bhaskaran endeared himself to the masses with the use of colloquial language in his lyrics.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala has lost one of its finest lyricists and a major name in Malayalam cinema with the death of P. Bhaskaran here on Sunday afternoon.

Bhaskaran, who was keeping indifferent health for sometime, died at 1.30 p.m. following a heart attack after a fall in the bathroom of his Jawahar Nagar home in the morning.

The end was peaceful, just as the man's ways were after his early life as a firebrand revolutionary in the 1940s when he was in the forefront of organising workers in Thrissur and working as a messenger for Communist leaders underground.

He penned around 3,000 songs, directed 50 films and authored weighty collections of poetry besides producing films and acting in at least two of them.

But Bhaskaran was unassuming all through his life and led a contented life. Some of his songs are markers of Kerala's cultural evolution and he was instrumental in taking film songs to the common people with his use of colloquial language in his lyrics.

Bhaskaran was born in 1924 as the sixth son of Nanthyelath Padmanabha Menon and Ammalu Amma, at Kodungalloor.

He drew inspiration from his father, who was a writer and a political activist of prominence at the time.

Bhaskaran started out as a writer while in school and metamorphosed from a nationalist to a Communist revolutionary on reaching college. Jailed for nine months for having participated in the Quit India struggle along with leaders like Congress veteran K. Karunakaran, who went on to head the State Government, Bhaskaran continued to play a major role as an activist of the Communist movement and wrote `Vayalar Garjikkunnu' in 1946 immediately after the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising.

Bhaskaran joined All India Radio and later moved into filmmaking.

Certificate of Merit

Bhaskaran began his career as a lyricist contributing a few lines to a multi-lingual song in S.S. Vasan's `Apoorvasahodararkal' in 1949.

His first full-length song in Malayalam was for `Chandrika'. He made his debut as filmmaker with `Neelakkuyil,' which brought to Kerala its first President Certificate of Merit (equivalent of today's Silver Medal) for the Second Best Film in 1954.

That year also marked a high point in his literary career, for it was in 1954 that one his best-known collections `Orkkuka Vallappozhum' was published.

Bhaskaran went on to win several awards as a filmmaker and lyricist and was instrumental in introducing several musicians and actors to the Malayalam film-viewing public. Bhaskaran's `Ottakkambiyulla Thamburu' won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1982.

On returning to Kerala, he went on to serve the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi as its chairman and later held the office of the chairman of the Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC).

Bhaskaran moved away from the Communist path somewhere in between and had been living away from media glare for the last several years.

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