An Infoscion interacts with Ilayaraja

Below is an extract of an Infoscion’s (Ravishankar V) mail about his experience when he happened to interact with the great music director Ilayaraja:

2 weeks back, One evening, I got a pleasant surprise. The music of the movie - Manikantan was being composed in Chennai by Ilaiyaraaja and my friend called to ask if I would want to be part of this as he knew my liking for music. I jumped at the invitation and requested my manager, for time off work. When she heard why I wanted to be away, she readily agreed and asked me not to lose this life-time opportunity.

So there I was at the Prasad's studio last week, spending almost two full days with the Maestro as I watched him compose the tunes for the 6 songs in the movie. These were the most unforgettable moments of my life. He would sit in a deep meditative posture for a while after listening to the brief of the song by the director. Occasionally he would open his eyes and ask a lot of questions. He would sometimes give us pros and cons and ask us to think differently about a situation. But once we gave him a sound reason about why a song needs to have a certain colour, he would accept our explanation. He would again go back into his trance-like quietness. Suddenly, he would look at us and give a child-like smile as if he had got something out of the nothingness around the room. He would then tap away at his harmonium and the melody would manifest itself. He would then explain the nuances of the melody as I sat wondering how one person could capture everything that was in the brief into one tune. Each note, beat and bar had a reason to be there.

He explained patiently hundreds of little known aspects of various forms of music. His interpretations of the bhavas (emotions) of Thiruvasagam and some of the expressions of his composition in Sanga Tamil (He has a book of his latest poems called Adiyar Adiyottri, which are truly a class above) were at such a high plane that they touched a note in my soul. He also shared his experiences briefly about recording at Budapest for Thirvasagam and the love he received from musicians there.

The way he went about doing music was by itself a great lesson in professionalism. He was there on dot and never made us wait for any of his appointments during composing. He labeled all the tapes and materials that he used so that we could take back everything that he composed for us. He had a rough and fair tape in two different systems. He sang and recorded his roughs first and once both he and the director were happy, he sang the fair version. He would also not allow visitors or take calls unnecessarily. He would speak firmly, but there was always the willingness to listen to a different point of view. He associated music with God and saw himself as a vehicle for delivering it. He had great respect for his profession and did it with great dedication. He told us that good music was beyond intelligence and no amount of smartness can replace genuine inspiration. He said he has had many great moments of inspiration which would disappear before he could capture them and would come back after many months again fleetingly. So I am not even sure, if we have had the best of Raaja yet.

Much of what he spoke came from his heart and I could see how he could be easily misunderstood by critics who could never see the world that he lives in. When the time arrived for me to leave, it was as if I was leaving a dear friend and a guru, whom I had known for many years. I am eagerly awaiting the music release in April and the movie itself in November. When I see it comes out on screen, it would also be a testimony of the culture and values at Infosys – because without its respect for the work-life balance and the constant encouragement for self-expression that I have received from various people at Infosys, my participation in the movie's making would not have been possible. I feel very lucky.