In Naetru Aval Irundhal (from Maryan, Composer – A.R.Rahman, Lyrics – Vaalee), every single note of music gently pop – doesn’t burst or explode, just pop - out of millions of drops of a vast and deep Ocean of silence to create a magical musical universe flooded with just one thing - emotion. The experience of listening to those hundreds of moments within the song’s span, of something so ethereal popping out of absolute nothing is what some call God.

I have been dealing with a unique problem this past week, ever since Maryan released. In the last one week, I couldn’t create a space and time for myself to listen to Naetru Aval in absolute silence. Where ever I go, noise follows. I listen to music everyday on my iPod when I commute of Office in BMTC (non-A/C) bus. I spend good one hour in the morning and one and half hours in the evening listening to music sitting in the bus. But, when you are in the Bus, there is all possible noise around, bus engine sound, vehicles relentlessly honking at the signal, screeching tyres, the horrendous FM playing inside the bus and what not.

When I am about to dive deep into the universe of the song as the soft and silky voice of Chinmayi with a husk spouts Hey Mariyan Vaa, bus driver applies sudden brake and the tyres’ screech fill the deliberate stretches of silence created between each syllable, and pulls me out to the real world.

I reach office – a totally air-conditioned space devoid of the noise of the world outside, but especially this week, there was hardly a minute to breathe anything other than work. One day I escaped to rest room, with my iPod, but then there is the noise inside my mind, the worst of all, that keeps screaming all things official - the Batch job that is running, the status report I have to prepare, the flashes of lines of code where the probable change is needed to fix the bug. But, that is where I managed to listen to some of what the song is made of.

The orchestration of the song is ethereal, delicate, intimate and so innate to the main melody. Though the same set of lines repeat four times, each reprise gets an orchestration and a vocal rendition distinctly different from the other and song flows so seamlessly from one section to another. It is when Angangae (...Nooru puraakkalum), Anga, there, the golden melody of the song hits its emotional peak and it is pivoted there and throughout the song everything ascend and descend towards and away from that point. After fifteen minutes of listening to the song on loop, when the song goes Vaanae Nee Andha Naetrugalai Kondu Vaa, the short sweet reply of the angelic chorus to Vijay Prakash’s request is joined by the Jazz piece – “Tu ru ru thu thu” background score piece from Jhoota Hi Sahi – my mobile ringtone – my boss calling and asking me to send immediately the Weekly Status Report for the previous week.

Then I reach home, and there is only so much speaker volume I am allowed in our not so quiet neighbourhood. With that level of volume on BOSE speakers, I can’t experience the song the way I want to. The ear pod too is of no help when it is summer in Bangalore the ceiling fan is running at high speed with its whirring sound, which becomes the basic buzzing sound layer of the song. I totally hate that. I wonder how I managed to listen to Moongil Thottam or Nenjukkulle without any of these problems. Ah, well, I was not in India when Kadal Songs released.

Of course, I can choose to ignore the external noise and concentrate and listen to the song. I do. I concentrate. I hear the celestial chorus, those sparkling bell strokes that invokes a slight Yen Mel Vizhundha Nostalgia, the Harp glissando from where bounces off the first reprise of the main stanza, the lazy Continuum piece, those accordion bits - the obvious leisure-ingredient of the song, the Saarangi that A.R.Rahman adds to emphasize the Then Kural Vijay Prakash is singing about, the strings that whirl and stir, soar and fall, simmer and sail throughout the song. Ah! That goose bump inducing flight the Strings take along with Nooru Puraakkalum in the last reprise of the main stanza. I hear that too. But, it is not enough. I want to hear the absolute Silence that is pregnant with all these varied sounds. I want to hear those nanoseconds of Silence just before the flash happens from when and where many little worlds of the universe of Naetru Aval Irundhal are born.

I can’t wait to watch Maryan on big screen. The entire Cinema hall would be filled with just Naetru Aval Irundhal and its Silence. There is of course Visual noise, but when I watch the movie for the first time, I am going to close my eyes during this song. I don’t want my mind to process any new data apart from those fed by music and Silence of the song. But, that is only after the movie’s release. I can’t wait so long till the movie’s release to experience the song. Can I?

I decided to go home – the real Home, and that is where I thought I could get the space and time I so desperately wanted to experience the song. Boarded a Bus to Salem (Multi-axle A/C bus), and already Sundarapandiyan movie was playing in the bus on loud speakers and Sasi Kumar’s voice was the worst accompaniment Naetru Aval Irundhal could ever have. I heard the song once, heaved a disappointed sigh and stopped listening to the song out of sheer respect. Reached Salem, and immediately rushed to nearest shop to buy Maryan Audio CD. I don’t believe that iTunes version that I had been listening to for past one week was the best quality available. Finally, on 18-May-2013, at midnight I finally heard Naetru Aval Irundhal in an ambiance closest to the one I wanted around while listening to the song. And the song was on loop for two hours.

Yet, someday, I wish I could mute this universe once, just once, for five minutes so that I could wholly experience those sharp nodes of Silence from where emerges every little decibel of Naetru Aval Irundhal.

When I was watching Hobbit for the first time, quite unusually, I was distracted by the cues that were not played as the background score in some of the moments in the film. The catchiest and unique of all cues in the soundtrack - The Radagast’s theme – didn’t play out in its entirety neither when Radagast is introduced nor when he lets himself chased by the enemies to buy time for the Bilbo and Co to escape. Instead of enjoying the action on the visuals, I was bothered by what is not played as the score. Needless to say, I had heard Hobbit Soundtrack at least a hundred times before the release of the film. Also, in the climax battle, when Thorin dares to have a one on one fight with the pale Orc, the music played – a theme that is extremely popular and identified as evil Ring Wraith’s theme from Lord of the Ring - was a huge distraction. Thorin is not evil; he is not someone to be feared of. And, this is not how I like to experience a film. The habit of consciously listening to the musical score while watching a movie, though I never do it deliberately, does become a distraction at times. Some movies give an intense experience, everything that makes the film perfectly blend with one another, becomes one homogenous whole creating the world and the atmosphere.

And that is how I felt when watching Kadal for the first time. Kadal background score sounds totally appropriate for the film. The score is dramatic with loud strings, evocative choirs and orchestral pieces for intense emotional moments, brass-heavy orchestral bangs for Satan and percussive cues for action. But, only when I sat down to watch the movie again, now listening to each and every cue played for the visuals, to write something about the score, did I recognize the lack of thematic integrity in some of the cues in the score. When a cue played for a scene in the initial part of the film reprises again at a certain moment later in the film, you are left wondering why that piece meant for a specific purpose in that scene, is played without any variation in here; what is the emotional or even thematic connect between these two moments. At least if it is a cue with a very well defined melody (like that main Thomas’ accordion theme), you can come up with some theory of subtext but when the piece is an incidental music - which isn’t really a theme that you hum while leaving the movie hall - but one that plays slavishly to the visuals, it is puzzling.

The theme from the scene where Bergmans pleads Sam for mercy is used again in the scene where Thomas meets Bergmans for the first time, and chooses to follow Bergmans’ path. This could be explained though. Bringing Thomas on his path is how Bergmans avenges Sam for what Sam did to him. But, I am stunned at how precisely the theme that changes throughout its course according to the visuals in the initial scene, fits perfectly to the mood and the emotions in the conversation between Thomas and Bergmans. I find it difficult to believe that Rahman composed the incidental piece having both these scenes in mind.

Placement of music is equally important as the music in a background score. Rahman couldn’t have just randomly pulled a piece from his Kadal Background Score cues folder to play in this scene. In that sense, the choice of that piece in this scene is intriguing. And it is unbelievably appropriate even as a functional cue that doesn’t aim to add any subtext or deeper meaning to the proceedings.

There is also another instance. Father Sam is beaten up by the villagers for he is proven guilty of having sex. An enraged Thomas rushes to the Church, and the musical cue that is played while Thomas is running towards the Church is again played in its entirety in the action sequence in the climax. When the piece beings to play, there is also a major shift in the visuals, and the sudden change in the music - especially the sudden rush in the music works quite well with the action stunts in the visual touching a new peak in rigor and intensity, as Bergmans fights simultaneously with both Sam and Thomas and the camera takes a dramatic 180 degree round trolley capturing all three in action.

None of it sounded odd or distracted me when I saw the film for the first time. I have Kadal many times so far and the score never bothered me while watching the film like it did while watching Hobbit. It only pinches me when the other interests creep in. It is only when I sit and listen to the score ripped (without dialogues) from the DVD of the film, and watch the film simultaneously to find connections between cues so that I can claim to have discovered something no one noticed, write about them and generally show off, that I bother about such things.

Usually, I consider such repetition of cues in the background score as a sign of sheer laziness of the composer. Or it could be that the composer was working in an urgency to finish the score within a strict deadline. But, listening to what A.R.Rahman’s score does to so many other magical moments, you can’t right away dismiss it as the case of composer’s laziness. And there is so much to talk about many nuanced themes and musical moments (Thomas’ Accordion Theme, Variations of Moongil Thottam, Satan Theme, Bea’s Theme, Sea Knows Thomas, Chiththirayae Nila flute version, Bea’s Past Theme, Magudi Theme, Bea Intro, Sam Vs Bergmans, Anbin Vaasalae Italian Reprise, Anbin Vaasalae for a New born, and Yelesa Celina Theme) in Kadal, maybe sometime later.

A.R.Rahman Quiz Answers

Quiz 1 (4 Clips) - Yeh Tara (Swades), Jaage Hain (Guru), Thoda Thoda (Indira), Majaa Majaa (Jillunu Oru Kadhal)

Quiz 2 (4 Clips) - Sundari (Kannathil Muthamittal), Tara Ram pam (Doli Saja Ke Rakhna), I want to become a Nun (Minsara Kanavu), My Wish Comes True (Kisna)

Quiz 3 (4 Clips) - Toyota Etios, Mountains (Warriors of Heaven and Earth), Thiruda Thiruda, Kalingathu Bharani (Raavanan)

Quiz 4 (4 Clips) - Bombay, People Like Us (Unreleased Piece), Kaadhal Desam, Yuvraj Theme

Quiz 5 (3 Clips)- Raanjhanaa, Jeans (Madhumitha is gone), Mariyaan

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