He tickles your funny bone. Only that he does it through his music. And his compositions have now become the punch lines for many hit Malayalam comedy serials.
When we ask the man himself, composer Sanjeev Lal, the reason for the success, he says, ‘‘I love comedy. And that gets reflected in my compositions.’’ He started off with composing the comedy track for Comedy Show, telecast by Asianet.
Then he created waves with the title song of Indumukhi Chandramathi aired by Surya TV. Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam (Asianet), Bharyamaar Sookshikkuka (Surya), Sathi Leelavathi (Amritha TV), Calcutta Hospital (Surya) and Onam Bumper (Surya) came next. ‘‘There used to be a period when two among these serials occupied the 10 pm slot on two separate channels,’’ he says with pride.
However, it would be gross injustice to him if we just go on and on about his exploits in comedy genre alone. He has composed melodious title tracks for many serials like Kanyadhanam, Makal and Ente Maanasaputhri. And with around 10 years of experience in the industry, Sanjeev has many albums and a handful of movies to his credit.
His first work was a Hindi devotional album Namami, in association with Kumar Lakhani, proprietor of the London-based Wide Eyed Music, who is an accomplished singer himself. Sanjeev, after his studies, worked as a music teacher with the Chinmaya Vidyalaya in Chennai. ‘‘I used to compose songs for children and Kumar happened to listen to them.
There started our friendship and till now we have done around 45 ghazals and bhajans and have brought out many albums in Hindi and Gujarati,’’ he says. Sanjeev, who did his post graduation from Government College, Chittur, was the Kalaprathibha in the Calicut University youth festival in 1988. After albums, his next platform was ad jingles.
He has done around 15 of them till now, including the ones for Medimix, Cuticura, Nivaran cough syrup, many food products and Happyland. The advantage he had in this field was that he had many national clients and so a few jingles (for example, the one for Cuticura) got dubbed in around six regional languages. It was director Rajasenan who introduced Sanjeev to movies.
‘‘I had worked for his serial Bhagyanakshtram and we share a very deep personal relationship, especially because he is much into music,’’ Sanjeev says. Anukudumbam.com.
, Avan Chandiyude Makan and Rakshakan were the movies that gave him a place in the Malayalam film industry. He has also composed fillers for the movies Wanted and Vamanapuram Bus Route. The experience in the film industry has definitely made him wiser and he thinks twice before taking up a project.
‘‘I feel that the industry needs a bunch of professional film-makers,’’ he says. Soon, the conversation shifted to the maestros in the field and he talked at length about his personal relationships with a few ‘‘I was very close to Raveendran Sir. In fact, he had sung for my composition for the serial Amritavarshini along with Chitra.
What is special about his compositions is that each of them are distinct and are individual hits. Another composer with whom I share a strong bonding is Keeravani Sir,’’ Sanjeev says. Commenting on the audio industry as a whole, Sanjeev says, ‘‘We have a flood of songs.
Still the audio market is down because people chose to see the songs, rather than just listen to them.’’ Coming back to his hit parade of comedy songs, Sanjeev says, ‘‘I ensure that my compositions are hummable and have catchy chorus. I would like to mention the support given by lyricists Joy Thamalam, Sudhamshu and Saji Sabana towards this,’’ he says.
It is true that the chorus of many of these serials have become instant hit with children. He happily says that his son Shravan, a Class IV student, was among those who sang the chorus for many serials. A native of Harippad, Sanjeev stays with his wife Bindu, a lecturer with the music department in Women’s College, and their son near DPI Jn.
The hit track Entharo...
for Sanmanasullavarkku Samadhanam had fetched him the Asianet award for the best music composer on mini-screen in 2006. His new work is for the comedy serial Akkare Akkare and he will soon be working for a new serial for Asianet.
News RSS