Unforgettable voice
K. PRADEEP
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Shanta P. Nair rendered only a handful of songs. But they remain the best in the language.
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Scoring on melody: Shanta P. Nair.
Gentle, gracious and reticent. This was how Shanta P. Nair would always be remembered. A singer who never knew how to market herself, a sense of nervousness was palpable when you talked to her. A few years ago, when she was requested to narrate some of her experiences in the music field, she smiled demurely and needed to be coaxed to get her talking.
Her sister and her daughter, Latha Raju, who were there with her in the room that evening intervened. They revealed that Shanta had always been like that; she needed to be persuaded to sing, or even to talk.
There was something in Shanta’s voice that endeared her to a generation of listeners. It was a voice that was as smooth as the serene backwaters, lively as the monsoon showers. It was a voice that gelled with the Malayali psyche.
Artiste of AIR
Even before Shanta made her presence in films she was quite popular as an artiste of All India Radio. She had a legion of fans, some of whom religiously listened to her songs. During her stint at AIR, Kozhikode, she breathed life into numerous light songs composed by masters like K. Raghavan. It was during her AIR stint that she met her life partner, K. Padmanabhan Nair, who was a programme executive there.
Ahough Shanta made her film debut in ‘Thiramala’ (1953), it was ‘Neelakuyil’ that made people who mattered sit up and notice this dulcet voice. That one song ‘Unnarunnaru Unnikanna…’ had her class, her persona, stamped over it. This song catapulted her to fame.
‘Thiramala’ had some fine songs but since the film did not do quite well at the box office, the songs went unnoticed. Vimal Kumar, a Malayali who had settled down in Mumbai, was the music director. “M. S. Baburaj was his assistant then. There was a strong Hindustani flavour to Vimal Kumar’s tunes,” Shanta had said during that long-drawn conversation.
Shanta had the unique honour of having sung for stalwarts like K. Raghavan, Vayalar Rama Varma, G. Devarajan, O.N.V. Kurup and Baburaj in their first film and with many singers who recorded for a film for the first time. Among those singers was K. J. Yesudas. When she was asked about that experience Shanta simply smiled, twirled her fingers round the long, gold chain. It took a lot of persuasion to make her reveal how that happened.
“Yesu was a new voice and none of the senior female singers were ready to sing a duet with some one so raw. The film was ‘Kalpaadukkal,’ the song ‘Attention penne…’ MBS (Sreenivasan) asked me reluctantly if I would do so. I agreed because there was nothing wrong in singing with a newcomer,” she hadsaid. Not being able to sing more songs with Yesudas was one of her biggest regrets.
A little known fact in her short film career was that Shanta had composed a tune for the film ‘Ezhu Raathrikal.’ The song ‘Mecccathu poyivarum…,’ sung and pictured on her daughter Latha, was set to tune by Shanta, though it is now credited to Salil Chaudhary.
As composer
Shanta recounted how it happened. “Ramu Kariat wanted a song for the sequence and had to picture it immediately. Both Salil Da and Vayalar were not available. Kariat got Vayalar to recite the lyrics over the phone and asked me to tune it. I had never done this before but went ahead. The song was recorded and the scene picturised. Later when it had to be mixed, Salil Da listened to it and liked it. There was very little background score and despite suggestions to add something more to it, he decided to retain the original.”
Shanta may have rendered only a handful of songs. But they remain the best in the language. She even sang in one Tamil film. The song, in full Malayalam text ‘Dravidanmam ammapetta makkalallo nammal…’ written by P. Bhaskaran in the MGR starrer ‘Nadodi Mannan,’ was quite popular.
With the influx of female voices from across the borders of Kerala and with some music directors sticking to their ‘favourites,’ Shanta was forgotten after that lovely duet in ‘Murapennu.’
Right through her life she retained that silvery voice. It struck one when she spoke and sang snatches from her ever popular songs.
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