Onam Songs from Old Malayalam Films | My Favorites – Part 3

Onam 2012 is here — Pix Credit : Barish Chandran B

A couple more from the Malayalam cinema archives that I could find, and put together with the earlier ones that you can read here , here and here, which I feel is dense and rich enough to get any Malayalai who loves his/her Kappa Puzhukku and Fish Curry go weak in the knees and end up as a weeping wreck.

Newspaper Boy (1955 )

Music : A Vijayan – A Ramachandran
Lyrics : Traditional
Sung by : Kamukara Purushothaman Nair, Santha P Nair, TA Lakshmi, A Vijayan, A Ramachandran

The first known instance of the folk ditty as a playback composition for a film. There was an additional stanza added at the tail-end, maybe to get a reasonable playing time for the track ( I’m guessing). You could check out the entire lyrics here.

Maveli naadu vaaneedum

Avar Unarunnu ( 1956 )

Music : V Dakshinamurthy
Lyrics : P Narayanan Nair
Sung by : LPR Varma
The first released movie of Sathyan and Prem Nazir together, shot at Merryland. The lyrics went hardly traditional, instead held a thinly veiled exhortation to rise against injustices against the labour class. It was Socialism, but with a little help from mythology.

Maveli naattiley.

Kuttavali ( 1970 )

Music : V Dakshinamurthy
Lyrics : Vayalar
Sung by : P Susheela

A version recording of the original folk-ditty, set to music by Dakshinamurthy Swamy. Probably the only musician to have set two versions of the famous composition to music.

Maveli vaanoru.

Madhavikutty (1973 )

Music : G Devarajan
Lyrics : Vayalar
Sung by : P Leela and Chorus

Jayabharathy‘s second Kerala State Award for Best Actress was for this production, directed by Thoppil Bhasi. G Devarajan brings out the traditional motifs of Onam – the folk ditty, the invitation to the Onathumbi all worked in into the composition.

Maveli naadu vaaneedum.

Chunakkuttikal (1983 ) – Unreleased

Mahabali (1983)

King Mahabali, has been given the Sasi Kumar treatment of corny dialogues, stilted situations and everything that comes with the “Mythological production” package. Produced under the Sree Murugalaya Films banner, the movie had its Screenplay written by Palani Swami and Dialogues by the one and only N Govindankutty. The best part of the movie? MG Soman as Narada ! . The composition in the video is from the closing credits of the movie, with the traditional folk ditty going one way, and the visuals ( looking hastily cobbled together) going the other way. There is also an unsettling jump-edit into the Onam celebrations in Thiruvanathapuram. which I am presuming to be from 1982. It is possible that it may be added later into the VCD copy. Regardless, it doesn’t make any difference to the story :-P. You can read on the complete movie here