Ilaiyaraaja's Kalyana Virundhu : Different Tune, Same Musical Blueprint?
Ilaiyaraaja’s latest song, “Kalyana Virundhu” from Karthik Subbaraj’s Dorothy, is infectiously enjoyable. It has already prompted the reaction one hears every few years when a new Raja song suddenly transports listeners back several decades: “The old Ilaiyaraaja is back!”
I enjoyed that feeling too. But it also left me with a small sense of unease.
Do we really want the old Ilaiyaraaja back? Or should today’s filmmakers be challenging one of our greatest composers to show us something we haven’t heard from him before?
Is nostalgia limiting Ilaiyaraaja?
Think of the astonishing variety of situations directors gave Ilaiyaraaja during the 1980s. He had to compose for village romances and urban relationships, psychological dramas and comedies, thrillers and tragedies. The situations changed, the filmmakers changed and Raja responded with an extraordinary range of musical ideas.
That is why I sometimes wonder whether the directors working with him today are giving him enough scope. This is not a criticism of Ilaiyaraaja. Quite the opposite.
Raja has always been the quintessential Director’s Music Director. Understand what the filmmaker wants, understand the world of the film, and deliver precisely the music that world requires. If a director wants nostalgia, Raja can apparently summon his own musical past with frightening ease. And that seems to be exactly what has happened here.
Kalyana Virundhu, Ilaiyaraaja and that familiar 1980s feeling
Listeners have compared Kalyana Virundhu with several older Ilaiyaraaja songs — Ennoda Rasi Nalla Rasi, Nooru Varusham Indha Maappillaiyum, Ooru Vittu Ooru Vandhu, Singari Sarakku and others.
The song it immediately triggered in my mind, however, was “Mama Un Ponna Kudu” from Rajadhi Raja (1989). At first, that seems easy to explain. Both are energetic wedding-celebration songs with that unmistakable Raja flavour. But listen more closely and something interesting happens.
The tunes are not the same. So why does one remind us so strongly of the other? I decided to give the two songs a little musical DNA test.
Different melodies, remarkably similar skeletons
Kalyana Virundhu begins without a musical prelude. Anthony Daasan's voice comes in directly with the opening phrase. The rhythm follows, and after the next vocal phrase comes a short nadaswaram response.
Now go back 37 years to Mama Un Ponna Kudu. No prelude there either. SPB begins directly with the title phrase. The rhythm enters, another vocal line follows, and then comes a short nadaswaram response.
In other words:
Voice → Rhythm → Voice → Nadaswaram
The sequence is remarkably similar. The phrase lengths are comparable and the instruments perform similar functions. Yet when you actually examine the melodies, the notes are different. That is the fascinating part. Raja hasn't reproduced the tune. He has recreated something closer to its musical architecture.
It is a little like a father and son who may have different faces but share the same skeletal structure. Different people, unmistakable family resemblance.
The wedding is built into the sound
Both songs are driven by a four-count rhythmic framework, with thavil playing a crucial role. The combination of thavil and nadaswaram instantly places us inside the sound world of a traditional Tamil wedding. There are similarities in the internal construction too. At corresponding points, both songs move into faster, syllable-packed vocal passages without abandoning the underlying beat. It feels almost like the song has suddenly changed gears.
Then there is the chorus. Both songs use a male chorus, but it does not simply sit on top of the lead singer. The lead sings and the chorus follows or responds. The effect reminds me, loosely, of the supportive role of the oththu alongside a nadaswaram performance. More importantly, the chorus creates people. A wedding cannot sound like one man singing alone. It needs relatives, friends, noise, participation and celebration. Through the chorus, Raja creates that sense of a crowd without allowing it to overwhelm the principal vocal line.
Even the interludes share a blueprint
The resemblance continues into the first interlude. Both begin with nadaswaram, followed by a short synth passage. Again, the actual music is different, but the sequence of musical events is strikingly familiar.
The first charanam of Kalyana Virundhu introduces another delightful connection. Anthony Daasan gives way to Yugendran, whose voice today bears an even stronger resemblance to that of his father, Malaysia Vasudevan. Suddenly my father-son DNA analogy became unexpectedly literal! That may also help explain why some listeners were reminded of Ennoda Rasi Nalla Rasi, sung for Rajinikanth by Malaysia Vasudevan. Musical memory isn't always triggered by melody. Sometimes a voice, timbre, rhythm or instrumental colour can take us back to another song.
The second interludes of Kalyana Virundhu and Mama Un Ponna Kudu offer another connection: trumpets and the sound of a wedding band. But there is an important difference.
In Mama Un Ponna Kudu, the band cheekily plays Raja's own “Raja Rajadhi Raja Indha Raja” from Agni Natchathiram. Kalyana Virundhu uses the same broad instrumental vocabulary without making a comparable film-song quotation.
Same instrument. Different handling. And that distinction matters. The point isn't that the two compositions are identical. They clearly aren't. What is similar is the musical language used to construct them.
The Ilaiyaraaja wedding-song recipe
So what goes into an Ilaiyaraaja kalyana paattu?
Nadaswaram and thavil establish the wedding soundscape. Band instruments provide public celebration. A joyous four-count groove keeps everything moving. Powerful lead vocals give the song its personality, while the chorus supplies the friends and family surrounding them. Short instrumental responses keep the whole arrangement conversational.
Think of it as a wedding feast.
The basic ingredients — rice, dal, vegetables, coconut, spices — may be familiar. Change the quantities and combinations, and the same kitchen produces sambar, kootu, poriyal or avial. Raja does something similar with his musical ingredients. And perhaps that explains the enormous comfort of Kalyana Virundhu. It tastes familiar.
But should familiarity be enough?
This is where my admiration for the song and my reservation about it meet. Kalyana Virundhu works. It makes you tap your feet. It evokes the Raja we grew up with, and there is genuine pleasure in hearing that musical language again.
But it doesn't feel to me like tasting an entirely new dish. Karthik Subbaraj appears to have wanted a nostalgia trip, and Ilaiyaraaja has delivered that brief superbly. My question is not for Raja so much as for filmmakers working with him today.
Why stop there?
If you have Virat Kohli walking out to bat, would you ask the boy next door to bowl to him? Of course Kohli will hit a six, and we'll happily applaud. But put Pat Cummins at the other end and then see what happens. That is what I want contemporary directors to do with Ilaiyaraaja.
Give him unfamiliar situations. Challenge him. Instead of asking, “Can you give us that old Raja feel?”, ask him to take us somewhere he hasn't taken us before.
I like Kalyana Virundhu. I enjoy the nostalgia. But I don't only want to rediscover the old Raja.
I want to be surprised by what today's Raja might still do next. And perhaps the responsibility for making that happen belongs as much to the filmmakers who approach him as it does to the composer himself.
I explore the connection between Kalyana Virundhu and Mama Un Ponna Kudu in much greater detail — with side-by-side musical examples — in my latest Oru Naal Podhuma episode on the Tamil Nostalgia YouTube channel.
Different tune. Same blueprint? Listen to the evidence and decide for yourself.
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