Alaipayuthey and Saathiya Revisited

 

Just the other day I was watching Alaipayuthey after almost a decade and I was (once again) struck by how, in spite of Saathiya being a scene by scene replica of this movie, the Tamil scores over its Hindi remake in almost every aspect. 

While it is controversial whether Shaad Ali can hold a candle to Mani Ratnam as a director (IMHO he doesn’t) and whether Rani Mukherjee and Vivek Oberoi are any match for Shalini and Madhavan as a lead couple, what surprised me the most was, that even Gulzar’s lyrics for Saathiya were no match for the magic that Vairamuthu had spun for the original. The examples are quite evident:

1. Pachai Nirame/Saathiya

 

This song comes at a point in the movie (both movies) where the boy is becoming deeply infatuated with the girl – or ‘a’ girl, at this stage. This infatuation, as the movie goes on to explain much later, is like a fragrant flower – beautiful and intoxicating, but ephemeral nonetheless. The relationship is yet to strike ‘roots’. Sacrifices are yet to be made. It, therefore, is nothing more or less than the first exhilarating rush of passion – akin to a mountain river, that possesses the momentum to move rocks but lacks depth.

Vairamuthu has expressed this phase of love by creating a mosaic of myriad colours. “My Friend, my Love, love is so colourful/My Friend, my Love, you too are colourful like love” – thus begins the song. He goes on to paint a vivid picture – vibrant, passionate greens, deep, angry reds, sparkling yellow, serene blue, mysterious black and pure white – he finds all the colours of nature in his lady love. Poetic yet apt…so apt to limn the ‘first fine careless rapture’ of newly awakened love.

Compare this to the watered down version of Gulzar, where the boy is satisfied with just the wet ‘laughter’ of the object of his affection. “Let your laughter echo in the valleys” – he warbles. “Don’t go into the garden, the bumblebees will tease you,” he warns. “Keep smiling throughout the year, keep smiling softly” – he requests. Where is the full-blooded passion of youth in this song? Where is the ardour of infatuation, the ode to sanguine, iridescent love? Where is the inconvenient, immature, impatient outburst of feelings? 

Young love is concerned with appearance rather than smiles, with arrogance rather than mellow affection, with passion rather than putting on woollens and having a long heart-to-heart in a snow-clad valley. 

That’s the difference between youth and age, and Gulzar (IMHO) stumbles here badly. His quest for laughter is middle-aged, at the least!

2. Snehithanae/Chup Ke Se

 

If there ever were two songs with identical tune, identical orchestra and the same singer (Sadhna Sargam) and yet sounded as different as chalk and cheese, they were Snehithanae and Chup Ke Se. Chup Ke Se, a mealy-mouthed, intellectualized version of its Tamil counterpart evokes none of the little smiles and sentiments that the original does. The original has a definite ‘character’ while the other is just another love song.

In Snehithanae, the girl is making a request to her secret lover (Karthik and Shakthi are secretly married at this point in the movie). She wants his tightness and embraces for as long as she lives -- note the allusion to virility. She isn't asking him coyly to hug her like (something as insubstantial as) the 'east wind'. Nor does she want to secretly hug him under the blanket of the night – that’s her compulsion, not her dream. Nor does she want to hide behind clouds…or want him to look at her through his fingers under the February sun. 

She would, rather, monopolize him completely. And she freely admits that his transgressions cause her pleasure; she wants him to lace his fingers through hers as they sleep...again, poetic but not just for the sake of sounding poetic. She would make him serve her, give her an oil massage, she would tie him up in her handkerchief, and extract a promise of commitment in exchange of releasing him.

And he would smilingly accept all her little atrocities, because his pride has been conquered by her curls and curves. 

What a way to describe the unquiet rivulets of love, of conquer and submission, possessiveness and obedience and other little games that all lovers delight in! 

And just as they prefer beauty to smiles, they prefer taking a bath together to singing a lullaby to each other. At least that’s how Karthik and Shakthi were in the beginning, when this song takes place.

3. Evano Oruvan/Mera Yaar Mila De

 

These two songs are the only exceptions in these movies where the Tamil and Hindi are totally different from each other, so it would probably not be fair to hold Gulzar alone responsible for the inferiority of the Hindi version.

In the Tamil version, it is Shakthi who is singing this song, as Karthik runs around looking for her. That alone has its own impact – because it is Shakthi who is reticent from the beginning and had called off the romance. Karthik, whose infatuation with Shakthi is already pretty evident in the movie, doesn’t need a separate song at this point to prove his feelings for her. On the other hand, we get to know for the first time that Shakthi’s heart is silently breaking – which makes their reunion all the more poignant. Add to this the sound of the thunder, the howling wind and the crashing waves, not to mention the grey skies and bleakness of a medical camp – and it paints the most desolate picture, truly symbolic of Shakthi’s feelings at this point (she doesn’t know that Karthik is coming for her).

In the background plays Evano Oruvan (sung to perfection by the late Swarnalatha) – “Somewhere, someone is playing a tune/From the darkness I listen to it” – so evocative of the pain of Radha sitting alone in Vrindavana waiting in vain for Krishna. “He brings me comfort in the merciless hours of the night” – so softly plaintive, such wistful melancholy…She doesn’t need to break open the vaunt of the sky nor does she yearn for the glitter of stars. She neither prays to God for her beloved, nor does she need to say in so many words that “Everything is barren”. That thought is woven very subtly and very softly through the entire fabric of the song. Away from dramatics, her empty eyes keep gazing at the ocean – ‘as one in a trance’ she keeps listening to the distant music.

4. Kaadhal Sadugudugudu/Aye Udi Udi

 

Where do I even begin with these two? “It’s a game of love, Come, touch me!” Karthik throws a challenge at Shakthi, who is quick to respond. “Don’t touch me and retreat like a wave, come and engulf me,” he demands. 

Aye Udi Udi, to me, simply says “I had a great night!”. It doesn’t really have the same edge, the shameless, brazen, outrageous daring (that the Tamil has) that would cause me to raise an eyebrow.

Really, when Gulzar writes “When I tease her, she gets mad/When I leave her, we have a fight/When I kiss her then, too, we fight,” it sounds like the complaint of a little boy bewildered by the complexities of a woman. Throughout the song he sounds lost and confused, as though something curious and miraculous is happening to him, but he’s not sure what.

But Kaadhal Sadugudugudu is on a whole new level of passion…bordering on desperate, obsessive love. It is the forbidden game between man and woman. “I’ll never get to the end of your mysteries and you’ll never get to the end of my love,” he assures, and then goes on to add: “But my kiss won’t fail to drive a point.” What calm assuredness, cocksure boldness…the open challenge of someone who knows all the rules of the game, and is moving for the kill J

The rest of the songs, too, bring out this difference. To summarize, Vairamuthu, through his songs, weaves enchantment and reality in equal measures, while keeping in mind the characters and content of the movie. But Gulzar, I feel, is too busy flaunting his poetic and linguistic prowess to care about the same. 

As a result the songs of Saathiya have none of the charm or beauty of those from Alaipayuthey.

It's a pity Mani Ratnam decided to sell the rights for this movie. A dubbed Alaipayuthey would've been a dream come true.