Introduction

Sangeetha Samagamam is a musical re-union of  geniuses whose collective efforts had created  masterpieces in melody and who now  journey back in time recreate the story of its genesis.

The modified avatar retains its basic trait of ‘reminiscences’  but instead of tracing the origin of songs of individual films, it does a retrospective trek through  many songs from many films of a single director, to reveal the persona of the Man.

Inaugural  episodes – Bharatan the Matchless Director

The  first dedication in the new  Sangeetha Samagamam  is for legendary director  Bharathan, for which a good part of the crew & cast of Bharatan’s films converged on the studios. These included KPAC.Lalitha, his spouse and veteran actress ;Sindhu Lohitadas, wife of  Lohitadas whose  scripts had supplied the framework for many of Bharatan’s classics; John Paul who had scripted 16 of his films; Nedumudi Venu who had starred in almost all his movies ; Pratap Pothen, a Bharatan protégés who made it big on the silver screen ; ONV Kurup, who penned the lyrics of his songs ; Johnson, one of  his favourite music directors; Asokan who had enacted memorable roles in some of his  movies and many many more.

 These artistes dip into the fertile estuaries of their memories and draw out stories and accounts of their experiences in Bharatan films – how song situations evolved naturally from his scripts ; where the lyricist composed his poems to suit the scenes; Bharatan’s contribution to the music director’s efforts to match his melody to the mood of the lyrics; how the singer put soul into the music and the actor gave life to the song .

From these pleasant remembrances emerge a picture of Bharatan, the eternal genius of Malayalam Cinema, who debuted in the Padmarajan –scripted Prayanam and then contributed a  string of films like Thakara, Chamayam, Kattathe Kilikoodu, Kathodu Kathoram, Vaisali, Amaram, Ormakkai etc – works of art, immortalized in celluloid through the unique Bharatan touch, for Keralites to treasure in their hearts for ever.

Next In Line

Later episodes will cover the films of  Director Jayaraj, Music Director M Jayachandran and others in the major league of Cinema. The Jayaraj episodes will feature Bhavana, Manjari, Gayathri, Minmini, Jassi Gift, Bijipal etc while Sujatha, Swetha, Vijay Yesudas, Viji Thampy, Gireesh Puthencherry, Rajasenan will be the guests in the Jayachandran series etc.

Sangeetha Samagamam is thus a gathering of talents from various fields of cinema , who have come together to retrace the steps behind the making of a classic song , of which they were the architects. By knitting together the nostalgic little anecdotes selected from their memories recollected in togetherness, the programme presents the Director himself before the viewers.