The seventh death anniversary of the legend Chakravarthi

[Suryaprakash Mothiki]

Seven years ago, there was a highly gifted controversial music director. One may like his music, dislike his music, but can not ignore his music. The name of this controversial music director is Chakravarthi, whose 7th death anniversary falls on Tuesday, February 03, 2009. In all popular Telugu film music albums, Chakravarthi finds an enviable place next only to K.V.Mahadevan.

The uniquely gifted Chakravarthi ruled Telugu film music like a monarch for about two decades. The decade of 1980 was full of his hits. During Chakravarthi’s reign virtually all music directors preceding him were driven into oblivion, except K.V.Mahadevan and Sathyam. According to his son Sri, a full-fledged music director on his own, Chakravarthi easily succumbed to the demands of directors and producers. His “inability to so no” did not allow him to create the best music he actually could. He did succeed in making all his compositions hits and all these songs bear his stamp of hard rhythm. There is a strange enticing flavor in all his tunes which became instant hits. He could not create everlasting music but had to settle for ephemeral catchy tunes.

He was never accused of indulging in plagiarism. He used to repeat his own successful “mass tunes” at the behest of his producers.

Only K.V.Mahadevan knows the art of balancing: convincing the producers on one hand to go on his own way and pleasing his audience on the other all the same.

Chakravarthi's musical brilliance could not be hidden in movies like Mallepoovu, a remake of the Hindi classic Pyaasaa directed by Guru Dutt. His way of presenting emotionally moving lyrics like “Ee Dhuryodhana Dhussasan Durvineetha lokamlo..”, “Vandemathara geetahm varasa maruthunnadi…” certainly reflect the brilliant Chakravarthi squash. His tuning of Sivasthrothram in Bobbili Brahmanna is simply breathtaking and only the great S.P.Balasubrahmanyam could render it so effortlessly. He was a broad-minded man and most of his assistants became full-fledged music directors. Children of Saluri Rajeswara Rao and T.V.Raju learned the art of composing from this great legend. He used to give full credit to P.Suseela and S.Janaki for his best compositions and used to present them with Kaanjeevaram silk saris on festivals treating them as his sisters.
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Mesmerized by music,
Suryaprakash Rao Mothiki

[Surya]

Though not a music wizard, Chakravarti was amazingly talented.
His knack of composing tons of catchy mass tunes was extraordinary.
His melodies were also no less in quality and quantity.

A jovial and kind-hearted person very rarely seen in the film industry!

[movie_lover]

mass paaTala madhyalO konni adiripOyE melody pATalu andhinchina ghanatha mana apparao di adEnanDi chakravarthy gAridi. udAharaNa ki
oka pakka 'atta maDugu vAgulOna atta kooturA' anTu mass song ichchi adE chEthO adE cinemAlO 'vAnochchE varadochchE' mariyu 'ee madhumAsam lO' anE renDu madhura geethAlu jata chEsAru..

[schimata2]

One ultimate contrast (mass v/s slow) is gajadonga songs (nee illu bangAram v/s indra dhanussu cheera or idO rakam dAham..

Next time, pl. post these important dates (BDay or death anniv) in advance so that we can link up these folks' songs on the main page.

Thanks,
Srini