Neethane Enthan Pon Vasantham.

Every act of creation is first an act of destruction - Pablo Picasso

There is always a movement in whatever aspects we see in our life. Nothing stands still. There is always a cultural movement which includes art movement, political movement , religious movement etc. There are various art movements/periods starting from Stone age, Greek, Roman, Meditative art of indian origin, Middle age, Renaissance, Baroque, Romanticism, Realism, Cubism, Orphism, Surrealism up to Post-modernism/Deconstructivism. Each movement reflect a certain period and its people. We have seen Maestro's numerous work closely depicting most of the oldest art movements like Stone age till Romanticism, while successfully invading the latest movements. Whenever we talk about these art movements, we only talk about music in those periods. For example, we have talked about Renaissance, baroque periods and how Maestro's music compared to those times and how Maestro paid tribute to those musical legends (as these are the topics which interests us most). How about taking a little deviation and talk about the actual art itself of those times (which is part of the culture) and compare with Maestro's music. If there is a cultural change, it means everything, not just music alone. The main reason why this metaphor stuck me is because of the theme of the composition. A man is on a journey to meet his lady of love reminiscing his good old days with her. Just the theme did not evoke such a metaphor, the way Maestro translated the theme effectively into music impacted deeply which made me go along these lines. Also through this discussion, we will be mainly concentrating on few art movements starting from Cubism to post-modernism, as these movements started the 'Modernism' in art. As the music is also about 'modern' love and 'modern' love story, I thought it would be apt to go this way. So let's go.



Maestro's music can always be related to nature. Maestro has gone beyond that in this composition. Please look at this picture. It is called Violin and Palette by Georges Braque which represent Analytical Cubism. One of the greatest experiment of Cubism. Cubism is one of the most influential art movements invented by famous Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. As the name suggests, a Cubism painting has a multitude view points of natural forms into geometrical planes. The image in the picture appear fragmented, but still we could identify the images in it. Even as the painting is a still object, our eyes are set in motion and moves rapidly from one plane to another to grasp what is in the picture. That's the multiple view points in cubism. There is also another term which represent Analytical Cubism called simultaneity meaning to show all the sides at once. It broke down all traditional perspectives. Isn't it amazing?

Varun is leaving from his office saying bye to his colleagues. While he is doing that, he is also simultaneously thinking about his lady, which gives a sense of happiness as he is going to meet her after years. It also gives him a sense of ambiguity whether she will accept him again. He is not completely happy, nor he is completely sad, but he is not normal too. He is in some sort of anxiety and confusion. Lot of things running in his mind which gives rise to various color palettes constituting different planes, but all merging into a big object, which he doesn't know clearly. Maestro paints the exact picture in his mind in this prelude. If we hear the prelude alone, it starts off with a male choir, a stunning one. Violins follow the choir providing the harmony we were waiting for. Then comes the bass guitar's big punch (see how it bounces, terrific!) with acoustic drums (beating four times) with violins and cellos. A perfect throw-back to the classical/romantic era with evenly layout choir harmony with instruments. It even starts off brightly with a major key signature, E Major. If you hear the melody, we can hear the basic chord progression of E Major, I chord, IV chord, 1 chord, V chord and back to I chord. The time signature is 7/8 which is unconventional/faster which also denotes the anxious mood of the lover. Once the male choir starts, we can sense a sort of joy in his mind, but the way violins join the choir and played immediately counter attack his joy (even if was played harmoniously) as he also senses about her actions, that's where the humming takes a different turn with a bass guitar outburst, denoting that he is also thinking for the worst. We are already seeing many colors of his mind as separate palettes, but all constituting to something gray.

We can visualize that distorted violin in the picture when the violins are played in parallel with the male choir, representing each violin for each male singer all at different times constituting the harmony. When bass guitar and acoustic drums join, we can see those palettes which serve the violin constituting that picture. Same way, his mind is thinking million things, all on different planes, but all comes together beautifully, as he starts writing about her (lyrics which follows) and their love. It is not that I have taken this picture for my convenience to explain, but I have even tried few paintings of Cubism and all surprisingly fit into this prelude. You can try a few and let me know. As we know where Cubism art form transformed into, same way it would be interesting to know where this prelude is leading us to.

After a brief pause Maestro starts the pallavi-anupallavi, as he is moving from one movement to another. The way the lyrics is written and the tune is constructed makes me think it falls into Surrealism. Surrealism is a very powerful art movement immediately following Dadaism. The artists of Dadaism who opposed aesthetics, started their work along Surrealism. This movement mainly focussed on revolutionary and imaginative ideas beyond traditional art forms which invokes lot of surprises. Surrealism also involves lot of dreamy, fantastic but incongruous imagery, which normally does not occur in reality. The picture above is one reference. Salvador Dali is one of the pioneer in Surrealism. I could closely relate his works with Maestro, especially in this pallavi. The lyrics too helps us to visualize easily. First let us see the lyrics of the pallavi.

kaatrai konjam nirkka sonnEn poo parithu kOrkka sonnEn Odi vanthu unnai sandhikka (2)
meththai ondru thaikka sonnEn mEgham aLLi vaikka sonnEn kannai moodi unnai sindhikka
sutrum bhoomi nirkka sonnEn unnai thEdi paarka sonnEn ennai patri kEtka sonnEn en kaadhal nalamaa endru

Before even coming to the tune and orchestration, Na Muthukumar was the main reason for me to identify the Surrealism in the pallavi. Asking air to stop flowing? Asking the earth to stop revolving? Can it search for his lover? Can a bed contain clouds? Can anyone see anyone with their eyes shut? What a beautiful, but abnormal thinking by Na. Muthukumar!. Nothing is real, nothing can be achieved, still all these unrealistic/fantasy feeling going on in hero's mind, as love makes him think like that. Before even the lyrics was born, the tune was born. So we need to address the surrealism in the tune itself. Tune is not that complex (at-least in pallavi), but listen to the drums accompanying the pallavi tune. It looks like chopping at regular intervals (four beats a gap and four beats), but when the pallavi line is finished, it assumes flowing rhythm pattern, then when pallavi is repeated it again follows that chopping rhythm pattern. From this we can see that Maestro intentionally composed this sort of chopping tune to denote the ever changing thoughts of the lover (as he is excited to see her again), just like we see the surrealism picture above as our eyes waver to grasp everything in it. The lyrics then follow the tune with some unimaginable dreamy thoughts one crossing over another another on separate planes. When he finishes pallavi (for the first time) Maestro didn't add filler to it, but when he repeats the pallavi, he adds sax, but the melody of sax is tangential to the pallavi on a different plane, yet it gives a beautiful extension to the tune.

When he sings anu-pallavi lines, hear the sax and compare the sax of the pallavi. While the melody of sax is little linear during pallavi, in anu-pallavi it is almost circular, the way it is played. It clearly and closely follows the lyrics, 'sutrum bhoomi nirkka sonnEn…' that's the reason we hear like that. Is it really possible to play like that, but I certainly hear that sax being played in closed loop fashion denoting the earth revolution. As the tune builds up to 'ennai patri kEtka sonnEn en kaadhal nalamaa endru', we can hear a chord progression, violins lifting off like a bullet. I can visualize this piece of violins take of as the earth stopping its revolution, straightening itself and sprinting forward (without revolving on it own) to look for the man's lover. This is how musically Maestro communicates a lover's dreamy thoughts on various geometric planes, and Na.Muthukumar grasping Maestro's ideas into words giving a complete visual experience in music (all sides at once), like we are seeing in that picture. The tune, orchestration and lyrics match eye for an eye. Surrealism at its best in music.

When Karthik sings the first line pallavi for the third time (after anu-pallavi), we can still hear the plight of violins, as the earth is still in motion. Just when he completes the first line, violins gives way to piano, but piano ascends. The piano is a pre-cursor on how the interlude is going to start. When he sings the second line of pallavi, slowly the chords descend (again this is normal chord progression of E Major scale, please correct me if I am wrong) as his line of dreamy thoughts is slowly subsiding but piano takes off as he is conceiving other thoughts. This is Maestro's pet territory that when the tune is going up, the chords descend, giving the counter-melody. We are in for the next art movement.

Post modernism as it states does not adhere to any specific rule or it does not even have a specific or precise concept. We even don't know if post-modernism continue the modernism way, or is it against it?. That's a paradox. Same way it also denies any historical linkages, but takes influence from the history, which is again a paradox. If Bach and Beethoven thought that their musical style was current (obviously so) in their times defying any history, then they were also post-modernists. Past becomes present. One thing is certain, it defies boundaries, presents multiple meanings, but it quotes those historical references according to the current cultural context. Then there is no denying fact that Post-modernism has reflections from Cubism and Surrealism. Whenever we talk about Post-Modernism, we could not avoid talking about Deconstructivism. Deconstructivism in architecture is deforming the actual structure and discovering new relationship within that space. Same way in art, it shifts away from traditional and classical concepts and tries to come up with new relationships. It is again a vast subject. To put it simply, Post-Modernism is not an art movement, it is an attitude. There are lot of good books to read, will leave this aside now. Let's now focus on how the above two art movements is applicable to this interlude.

When the pallavi finishes, exactly at the same time, piano takes off and expands like a never ending horizon. We can hear grand piano, sax, oboe/bassoon. That sax, I have never heard such a pleasing sax in a long long time, may be never at all. When that sax is going high, the contrasting piano at middle octaves provides a beautiful shade. Then there is that magical run of piano (?@1:43). Chromaticism at its best. I am dumb-founded by that piece. How could he even conceive this imagination?. Even in piano we can hear two different sounding pianos. Immediately after that, male choir sings a fabulous bass harmony. While we are immersed in that, a soft flute flows in with violins pouring the chill shower, all with bass guitar. Piano again follows on a different contour only to gives us time to breath to grasp all this with that magnificent pause. In this interlude, I already know that I have missed tons of melodies, tons of musical phrases, tons of WCM concepts, the instruments used, the moods, colors and shades painted in it. It will take a life time to decode and understand this interlude, but it will hardly take a moment to appreciate and cherish this interlude, once you listen once. This interlude is not something we listen often, it blooms once in a yuga. With so much happening and so much notes packed in this interlude, that feel-good factor (sugam) is not compromised and only adds to it endlessly, every time you listen. It goes everywhere, wherever it wanted to but without losing the focus and back in time for the next section. Hallmark of Maestro's compositions. The previous pallavi section had tune and lyrics to drive Maestro and us through, but that section is sort of restricted to the tune mainly, but only during the interlude, he can cut loose (despite adapting to the situation) and bring in every idea and innovation possible. I believe only Maestro utilizes this opportunity to the fullest and that's where his musical score stands way far ahead from the rest.

Now, what art movement can I relate this to? It has even the Cubism, Surrealism, but when I listened to this song the first time, this is the portion which immediately attracted me and it is much more than just one art form. Overall musically it even takes us back to centuries behind Cubism, but the tonal quality, new sounds emerging from real acoustic instruments, individual components of melody, unlimited shower of music immediately takes us centuries ahead. We can never really fit this into one movement, yet it might best fit into Post-modernism and Deconstructivism. We can clearly hear how various instruments discover newer relationships. We can hear a little bit of violin concerto, piano sonata, flute concerto, sax concerto, guitar passages, acoustic drums, all in one, but we cannot even say they are concerto, as the way one follow another and the way one play along with another, with every melody independent, but hear how all comes together like the picture above to form a post-modern structure. Almost all the WCM concepts are deconstructed and restored again to develop a new relationship among them. We cannot define this interlude or this song to any genre too. That's the reason it has fresh feel to it. Normally whenever we talk about post-modernism, purity of form and technique is almost ruled out, but Maestro keeps that intact, that's where we see his signature.

The reason of choosing post-modernism for this interlude should also match the situation, correct? From the definition of post-modernism stated above, this art movement is nothing but an attitude. Like I said, 'Almost all the WCM concepts are deconstructed and restored again to develop a new relationship among them', same way, he wants to throw away all his traditional ideas and behaviors and restore/start a new relationship with her. There were also good times with her in the past, which he remembers to carry on forward (restoration), leaving out the bad times behind (deconstruction). Most beautiful phase in the composition!.

Before moving on to the next phase of discussion that is after that magnificent pause, I have to mention about the speciality of E Major scale. E Major scale is a very difficult scale to compose, and it is more suitable for violins and strings (guitar included), mostly solo violin. Maestro has chosen this scale appropriately as, we can see right from the start the usage of violins. The difficult part is he also uses wind instruments like sax, oboe, clarinet in this composition along with violins. E Major scale is not suited for wind instruments (as I read, but need to understand more on why it is difficult) and this again proves Maestro's authority on the subject taken. As we can hear, the way these wind instruments are played, is not normally we find in a flute, oboe or clarinet concerts. It is played rather uniquely with more or less a kind of tremolo to suit the tune. I can imagine that. Moving on to charanams and new movement.

After that magnificent pause in the first interlude, Maestro introduces oboe (for the first time in this song/) to takes us forward into the charanam. I was wondering why a pause was needed there. What could be the reason?. One reason I found out after watching the movie is the bus in which he was traveling comes to a stop. He gets down. Gautham would have requested Maestro to have a pause in the song, as he might have planned to have to stop the bus there. Varun is much closer in distance to Nithya now, as he is approaching her village where she is doing a service for tsunami victims. Another reason for the pause is all the while, he was flying with his imaginations and dreams, first time he is grounded, as he puts is feet on the ground out of the bus. His thoughts are now only with her and his anxiety to meet her. Maestro making this transformation in him musically visible to us with the pause. How brilliant?. Third reason technically is, Maestro is moving from a major scale to its relative minor scale. He definitely needs a pause, as he cannot directly switch, especially to its relative minor. Before the pause the composition was in E Major, and now after the pause, he switches to E Major's relative minor scale which is C-sharp (c#) minor (for c#harmonic minor, we will have a raised 7th note by a semitone; B#). The transition is so subtle, but we can hear it clearly. As you might know minor scale (this is again over generalization, but it true most of the time) reflects gloomier, sad but intensely expressive side. The lyrics is a perfect example of that.

The I chord structure between E Major and c# minor is very interesting. E Major: E-G#-B, c#minor: C#-E-G#. E and G# stays same, but it alternates between B and C#. As you might have observed Maestro above didn't use V7 chord in E Major, but I think he uses V7 in c# minor. Apart from this, there is so much unconventional chord progression (apart from I and V) happens especially in charanams, which is very difficult to me to decode. It might take a while to get close to it and understand.



Impressionism is another art movement of 19th century which focuses mainly on the light and color, but gives an overall 'impression' on the object, but still the details are not clear. Claude Monet is a pioneer in this art movement and has painted some excellent pictures depicting this. One such painting is above. We can clearly see from the painting and tell the time of the day with its lighting and color. It is in the afternoon. From the overall view of the picture we can locate the surroundings, but the details are not that clear. The reason why I chose this art movement for this charanam is again the lyrics, tune, orchestration and the visuals. If we recall, we started with Cubism, Surrealism, and Post-Modernism where the music complimented the respective art movements, situation, Varun's reflections and lyrical abstraction. So far if we would have noticed, especially from the lyrical and orchestration point of view, they were on different planes, thoughts were also flying extremely high, but not yet grounded firmly. The lyrics in charnams communicates his thoughts indirectly to her. Please note the word 'indirectly', as it is still one way communication. That's also one more reason for choosing Impressionism, as he is pouring his impression on her, but there is still no reality.

nEril paarthu pEsum kaadhal ooril undu yEraaLam (Karthik sings yEraalam, how terrible is that!)
nenjin uLLil pEsum kaadhal nindru vaazhum ennaaLum
thaLLi thaLLi pOnaalum unnai eNNi vaazhum Or yEzhai enthan nenjaththai paaradi (how beautifully the words fit into the tune)
thanga meththai pOttaalum un ninaivil ennaaLum thookkam illai yEnendru solladi
saathi vaiththa veettil deepam yEtri vaikka nee vaa vaa
meedhi vaitha kanavai ellaam pEsi theerkalaam hey hey hey hey… (wonderful thought!)

Same way, Varun also gets down from the bus in the afternoon. He had a glimpse of the environment (light and color). Still he does not know where she is, but he knows that she is definitely very close. The details are not clear. That's when he starts writing the charnam lines in his mind, but this time, if you read the lyrics, we can feel that she is nearby and listening to him indirectly. Compare this lyrics with the pallavi lyrics which was reflecting celestial imagination. We can even see the light in the lyrics, 'saathi vaiththa veettil deepam yEtri vaikka nee vaa vaa' and the color implied in the lyrics; red (their hearts). Has Maestro tuned this charanam to fit into Impressionisim? Can we find the light and color in music (in the tune and orchestration)?

There are two main instruments at the background in the charnams. A violin family and a wind family (oboe/clarinet/sax). The violins surge up when he sings the first two lines of charanam, while oboe mediates after the charanam lines in a middle level. The violin melody is completely different from that of oboe, while the actual main melody (of the lyrics) is again different. The surging violins indicate the high skies and hot weather, while the tune itself denotes his heart, and the oboe provides the much needed shade for him to walk. The melody from oboe (shade from the tree) is almost the same level as the tune. I can even say Varun's friends (oboe) are his shades of tree (as they are accompanying him). Maestro uses the instruments and the tune correctly to bring in light and shades to it. It is almost real, with light and shades, but not completely real, as we still don't know the complete details.

One of the biggest highlight of this composition is how Maestro descends the chords when Karthik sings 'hey hey hey hey'. He goes from A minor to E Major (to start the pallavi). The notes go from A-C-G#-B-F#-A-E-G# and catches the E Major scale. What a beauty! Unimaginable by any proportions!.

We have almost come to the last art movement; Realism. As the name suggests, this movement is to faithfully depict images in a true dimension like how we see with our eyes naturally. Everything is perfect, the light, color, details, mood, everything, nothing hidden, nothing is lost from our eye sight. Now it should be obvious on why I chose this movement for this interlude. Before going there, a little bit about how the interlude was composed. One of the most gentle and sweet interlude of all times. It starts with a cymbal clash and roll followed by the female choir (or just one female singing?). The violins closely follow the vocals, while the piano mimic the vocals after she sings, but joins with the violins then after providing a beautiful three-way harmony with vocals, violins and piano with cymbal roll comes as a dessert. The melody in vocals goes high and slowly comes down, for sax to take over, ably supported by the piano. The sax melody is the ultimate which calms down our souls.

Varun sees Nithya just when the interlude starts. Everything is real now. He gets the 'butterfly-in-stomach' feeling as he opens his eyes larger than ever to see his lover. Maestro aptly brings in female choir for the first time in the song, as he is seeing his love. He could not believe, he closes his eyes and angers himself for not seeing her for the long time (that's where the melody goes high). As he gazes at her, he slowly comes down to normal (with the melody coming down and sax taking over) senses. All his anxiety gone, as he was waiting just for this moment. Maestro again plays the sax to symbolically calm his and all our souls. What a brilliant move by Maestro!. It really does. Realism at its best! Even with realism he never forgets the basics, the WCM vocal harmony. Added to that, the colors (especially the female choir) in the interlude is brought up by the chromatic scale movement. Remember the charanam was in c# minor and the pallavi (which was repeated after charanam) was in E Major, and now this interlude. This interlude has to again join the charanam in c# minor. So whether this interlude will be in E Major or in c# minor?. Maestro moves by open fifths from E Major to c# minor. You can never associate any chords of any scale, nor you can associate any scale to this interlude. Yet, we will never hear any discord in the transition. At-least for this interlude it almost acts like a cloud (icloud) or connecting mechanism between two different scales. We can feel the waves in the scale movement going up an down. The way the sax joins the c# minor is very interesting. Like there is no hard and fast rule, but it seems like it joins the charanam seamlessly, but in a flexible way. One of the most beautiful part of the song and thundering innovation!.

Still his mind goes back to Impressionism with a lot of thoughts again, but a sub-genre of impressionism called Neo-Impressionism. We can feel that from the lyrical perspective. While the lyrics of the first charanam almost goes in a longing mode, this charanam goes in a dissolving mode, as the last lines clearly says that; ennai indru meetkaththan unnai thedi vanthEnE, meettapOthum meendum naan unnil tholaigirEn (that was the most wonderful thought ever). The main difference between Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism is in the amount of details in the light and color. While Impression gives a overall light and color, Neo-Impressionism takes a systematic approach to break-down components of light and color into tiny dots. He approaches her more closely, as he is seeing her now (but she is not yet looking at him, so no reality) in his mind. We might have observed this even in our life. We might have met many close friends and have their images in our mind. When we meet them after years, we will approach them with the same image in our mind, but when we see them in reality, they would have changed. Same way, he didn't see her for years, but he has one image of her all the time with him. Once he sees her, that previous image goes down and this image catches up in his mind.
While the first charanam he wrote assuming her past image (so he had just light and color) and this charanam he is writing with his present image (with more details), so there is tangential thought difference too in the lyrics. Isn't it fantastic?

nEtru enthan kanavil vanthaai nooru muththam thanthaayE
kaalai ezhunthu paarkkum pOthu kannil nindru kondaayE
paarthu paarthu ennaaLum paathukaatha en nenju enna maayam seithaayo solladi
unnai paartha naaL thottu ennam Odum tharikettu innu enna seivaayO solladi
ennai indru meetkaththan unnai thedi vanthEnE (extra-ordinary imagination here!)
meettapOthum meendum naan unnil tholaigirEn (extra-ordinary imagination here!)

Exactly at the time when he sings 'unnil tholaigirEn', she sees him for the first time (in years) and her face changes immediately. She never expected this to happen. The song stops there in the movie, but we have to continue, as there is a finishing pallavi (twice). Maestro changes the underlying rhythm pattern with a solid guitar. When Karthik sings the pallavi for the second and last time, Maestro gets ready and when the last line is on, he tapers off and finishes off in style.

This composition talks about the journey of a man in search of his women. The theme itself is very inspiring for us to hear. Imagine how Maestro would have felt when hearing this theme. We can clearly hear the journey in music. As we saw, the journey is not straight-forward mentally, even thought straight-forward physically. Varun's thoughts are mixed and not free-flowing, it trends back and also moves forward. That is also one of the reason Maestro's music springs forward to post-modernism and also steps backwards to realism and Impressionism. When I was reading about these art movements, I was astonished to see that how it relates and interprets in exact same way of Maestro's music. Whenever there is an art movement, there has to be music movements pertaining to that art movement, music was never separate during these cultural movements. That's the reason I tried to map the art movements with music. You might ask, if Varun and Nithya are this generation lovers, why I went far behind to 19th century, instead of mapping to current art movements. The first main reason being, Maestro's music could not be confined to years, even it is composed today, it dates back to centuries behind and centuries forward. Unless we cover atleast few centuries, we are not doing any justice to his compositions, especially the kind like this. Second reason, there is no specific art movement as of today, as everything is globalized and shuffled. Whatever art movement we are seeing today, is a recycled art movement of yesterday. For example, post-modernism started in 1960s, but it still exists. To answer specifically, Varun and Nithya even though they are this generation lovers, they are perfect examples from post-modern era, but their hearts harp back-ward and forward, as they are in love. That's why we see even each section has different art movements, but not in chronological order. This composition is an abundant resource and research material on music. Not just in music, as I stated above, we can infer lot of analogies in this composition. Even though I have limited to one art movement per section, it contains more than that, if we look into it again. This is one composition which never stayed in a comfort zone, it travels far beyond our imaginations, but it never leaves us, I mean it always has links to our hearts. Maestro has injected lot of fresh ideas in this song, right from the way main melody is structured, unconventional chords structures, unending multi-dimensional orchestration, just like the flights taking off every minute in different directions from a busy airport, even there, the path is straight, but Maestro's path is never straight-forward, but there is one thing which we will never miss, the harmony. It will elevate us. Even when we can see this composition represents music from all periods, including the post-modernism and futurism, there is always continuity in it and it never forgets the basics. THE SOUL. How do we name this soul, RAJAISM!.