Dr Rajkumar - Remembered through songs Part 1

 Dr Rajkumar was(and in our hearts always is) a legendary Indian film actor. He is widely acclaimed as one of the finest actors in the history of Indian cinema. Most actors are known for acting in one genre and doing a great job whereas Dr Rajkumar acted in almost all genres which one can think of and lived the characters roles to the extent that for a lot of us, certain characters bring back only his visuals.

Dr Raj(as we will refer to him from now on) acted in several genres of movies and made his mark in each of them. There are several articles written about him, his acting skills and his singing skills. Yes, Dr Raj was a wonderful singer,who could sing even classical songs with ease due to his theatre background and is probably the only actor-singer to have won National awards for both acting and singing.

On the eve of his 91^st birth anniversary, I was trying to recollect as a fan, how music and songs were such an essential part of his movies and decided to create a blog about it.

Most Dr Raj movies had good music and it is difficult to choose some songs as the best ones. I have tried to capture below few samples of the movies in each genre and one song from those movie which held me spellbound and brought the movie visuals directly in front of my eyes.

One important thing to note is that Dr P.B Sreenivas (a doyen in his own field) was the de-facto playback singer for Dr Raj before the seventies. Dr Raj started singing in the seventies and he sang not only film songs but a lot of devotional songs. There were other singers too who sang for Dr Raj like Ghantasala but the quantity was much lesser. The blog is focussed on the movie songs and not necessarily Dr Raj's own songs or songs picturised on him.

I have tried to capture with a chart below the different genres of movies and the movies selected for this article. Against each movie, we will then discuss the song(s) from the movie.  

I have tried to stick to the songs by movie genre and not by song genre. For example, Dr Raj may have sung a devotional number in a social film but that will be captured under the social film genre.

In today’s article(Part 1), we will start with the first two genres today which are “Devotional/Bhakthi Pradhana” and “Mythological/Pouraanika movies). We will go through the other genres in upcoming posts.

Dr Rajkumar selected movies by Genre 

Bhakthi Pradhana(Devotional Movies)

There are numerous devotional movies which Dr Raj lived through and for us, when someone talks about the great seer Kanakadasa, the visual is of Dr Raj as Kanakadasa. I myself have seen Bedara Kannappa, Ohileshwara, Hari Bhaktha, Bhakta Kanakadasa , Mantralaya Mahatme and Bhakta Kumbara.

Bedara Kannappa was Dr Raj's first movie released in 1954. The song “Shivappa kaayo tande”   is a classic. It conveys the pathos of a hunter who is hungry and making offerings to Lord Shiva but does not understand the norms and traditions followed by society.

Bhaktha Kanakadasa brings the life of Kanakadasa(a vaishnava poet, philosopher, musician and composer from the 16th century) whose compositions are still sung today. Raj lived through the role and there are a lot of situational songs such as Eetaneega Vasudevanu, Badukidenu Bandukidenu but the one defining song is when Kanaka is tortured in front of temple and he sings “Baagilanu Teredu, seveyanu kodo Hariye” and Lord Krishna just turns towards him and the temple walls break to show the Lord to Kanakadasa (Kanakana Kindi in Udupi Sri Krishna temple)

Bhaktha Kumbara was another great movie where Dr Raj plays an ardent Krishna devotee Gora, who is so immersed in his devotion to the Lord that he even tramples his own child.  There are so many good songs(some philosophical such as “Maanava Moole Maamsada Tadike”) but the standout song is “Yelli Mareyaade Vittala” where Gora goes looking for the Lord in the climax of the movie, the Lord who served him as a servant when he lost his hands.

  

Pouraanika (MythologicalMovies)

Dr Raj has acted in several pouraanika movies where he has played parts ranging from all avatars of Vishnu(Dasavatara) to other characters such as Srinivasa, Shiva, Rama, Krishna, Arjuna, Ravana, Hiranyakashipu, Mahishaasura, Harishchandra etc, etc.  As you can see, he has played God as well as Rakshasa roles with aplomb. His stage acting skills came to the fore in many of these and his dialogue delivery and acting stood out in many of these.

I am starting with Babruvahana where he played roles of both Arjuna and his son Babruvahana. Beautiful songs throughout the movie (Dr Raj singing skills come out in “Araadisuve Madanaari”, which is one of my favourite songs where he is at ease singing difficult swaras in a song where he is wooing Subhadra). The standout for me is not a song but a battle of verses on the battlefield between father and son , “Yaaru tiliyaru ninna bhuja balada parakraama” before they go into battle. The lyrics are so good as is the singing by Dr Raj (for Babruvahana) and Dr PBS(for Arjuna) capturing the emotions of both characters.

Another movie which defined Dr Raj and Kannada cinema was the classic Satya Harishchandra. Acting by everyone was top-class. While there are other good songs(such as “Namo Bhoothanatha”), the standout catchy song was picturized on another actor MP Shankar which is “Kuladalli Keelyaavudo”.  The song is so popular even today, that is it probably sung in most orchestra performances and there have been remixes too.

Bhookailasa was a movie where Dr Raj played Ravana. Again the song for me which I hum every Ramanavami is “Ramana Avatara” by Sheerkali Govindarajan which is actually sung by Narada (played by Kalyan Kumar).  The song quickly runs through the story of the Ramayana in a few verses with great music and singing.

Srinivasa Kalyana was another movie where Dr Raj plays Srinivasa and weds Padmavathi. Beautiful visuals for those times accompanied by super songs. My selection is slightly offbeat that it is not a song picturized on Dr Raj but on another character who is an ardent devotee of the Lord. The song is one of the very few songs Dr S.P. Balasubrahmanyam has sung in Dr Raj movies and goes by "Pavadisu paramaaatma Sri Venkatesha".    

I have created and shared a youtube playlist with the selected songs above.

Please click on this link (will open in a new window).

Thanks for reading the article. Hope you could relive the songs along with me. If you liked it, let me know with a comment below. I will post a follow-up in the coming week.