Melodic journey
P.K. AJITH KUMAR
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P. Jayachandran makes his entry into Hindi film music, courtesy A.R. Rahman.
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Enter Bollywood: P. Jayachandran has sung a duet ‘Milo wahan wahan…’ with Alka Yagnik for the Hindi film ‘Ada.’
P. Jayachandran makes his entry into Hindi film music courtesy A.R. Rahman. Jayachandran and Alka Yagnik have rendered a duet ‘Milo wahan wahan…’ for the film ‘Ada.’ Says Jayachandran: “It is an excellent tune by Rahman, who has always given me great songs in Tamil such as ‘Enmel vizhuntha…’ (‘May Matham’), ‘Oru daivam thantha…’ (‘Kannathil Muthamittal’) and ‘Kathazhankattu vazhi…’ (‘Kizhakku Cheemayile’), which won me the 1994 Tamil Nadu State award for playback singing."
“When I was not that active in Malayalam cinema for a short while, it was Tamil films and composers like Ilayaraja who kept me busy,” he reminisces.
Ilayaraja hits
Ilayaraja too had given him some superb songs, including ‘Rasathi unne…’ (‘Vaidehi Kathirundhal’) and ‘Poove eduthu…’ (‘Amman Koil Kizhakkale’).
After a lull, he staged a thumping comeback to Malayalam cinema with ‘Prayam nammil…’ (‘Niram’) in 1999. The song became a rage and it fetched him a State award too.
“I am indebted to director Kamal and composer Vidyasagar for my second innings in Malayalam,” says Jayachandran.
And what a second innings it has been. He has sung hit after hit – ‘Ariyathe…’ (‘Ravanaprabhu’), ‘Alilathali…’ (‘Mizhi Randilum’), ‘Aarum…’ (‘Nandanam’), ‘Marannittumenthino…’ (‘Randam Bhavam”, ‘Kannil…’(‘Gourisankaram’)… over the last one decade and his voice seems to be getting younger by the day.
It is his voice and style of singing that have helped him create a space of his own in Malayalam film music even when he is a contemporary of K.J. Yesudas.
His own style
“I have the highest regard for Yesudas as a singer, but right from day one, I had my own style,” he says. His expressive voice helped him evoke the right emotion for each song he has sung.
“I try to understand not just the lyrics, but the situation of the song as well,” he says. His fans would have liked him to have sung many more songs. “But I don’t have any regrets or complaints. As a child, I had no plans of become a singer; if my teacher at National High School, Irinjalakuda, Ramanathan, hadn’t discovered the singer in me, I wouldn’t have become a singer at all,” he says.
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