8 TEENTIME

2012 MARCH 21 VOLUME 1, ISSUE 40 GULF MADHYAMAM l No1 IN THE GULF

CHIPS@

A titanic revision, one century after

The Captain was down in the saloon drinking and gave charge to someone to steer the ship, says Mrs Emily Richardss letter to her mother-in-law

Bombay Ravi
the music that lives on
.....
In the league of North Indian musicians who enriched Malayalam melody, Ravi Shankar Sharma, more famous to the Malayalam industry as Bombay Ravi, deserves his rightful space alongside the likes of the legends Salil Chaudhary and Noushad. If Noushad was classicist in approach and Salil Choudhary maverick-like in his versatile compositions, Bombay Ravi can be credited with restoring the indigenous stamp of Malayalam melody at a time in the early Eighties when the playback scene was turning mediocre. Bombay Ravi was a veteran in Bollywood with his signature tunes including the evergreen Choudavi ka chand, Chandamama door ke... and Bar bar dekho... when he had his first brush with Malayalam cinema in 1986. It was the M T Vasudevan Nair-Hariharan duo who roped in Ravihe was in the midst of a long hiatus in Hindi cinemafor the film Panchagni. There was initial apprehension since Ravi was on a long break from music (1970 onwards) and whether a Bollywood celebrity would fancy working for a relatively low-key industry like Malayalam. However, Ravi accepted the offer in which he must have seen the challenge of composing for a different Jyothi Varma language. The songs Saagarangale... and Aa raatri manju poyi turned out to be huge hits and went on to become the staple of stage shows across Kerala in that period. Apparently, it was M T who suggested that the music directors name be written as Ravi (Bombay) in the publicity material for Panchagni perhaps to differentiate from Raveendran who was slowly coming into his own in Malayalam cinema. This was how the composer got tagged as Ravi Bombay or Bombay Ravi. Soon, Bombay Ravi was back with an equally delectable set of melodious songs in Nakhakshathangal. Both the film and its songs (Aareyum bhavagayakanakkum... and Manjal prasadavum... became a raging hit. Ravis romance with Malayalam melody had only begun. In fact, people of those times would have been incredulous that the composer of a song like Manjal prasadavum...so blended in with the Malayali ethos right from its overall melodic matrix down to its minor nuanceswas from Bombay. It is said that when he composes music for unfamiliar languages, Ravi tries to get intimate with the musical sensibility and culture before picking up the baton. For Manjalprasadavum... he assimilated sound samples from the vicinity of the Guruvayoor temple. The song got its due by bagging both State and National Awards. A string of superb songs would followIndupushpam and Indraneelimayolum (Vaisali), Anchu sharangalum and Parvanendu mukhi (Parinayam), Chandana lepa sungandham (Oru Vadakkan Veeragadha), Chandrakantham kondu (Patheyam) and Andolanam (Sargam). Indupushpam from Vaishali fetched for Chitra her third national award. Ravi Shankar Sharma who started out wanting to make a name as playback singer, but turned to music direction, may not have given a voluminous song-book for Malayalam cinema. But he has written some of its best chapters.

atching the movie Titanic is like stepping in a minefield of shock the furious rush of water and peoples scramble to escape. How terrible it would have been to live through it! Indeed, we know an iceberg ended the iconic ships maiden trip at 10.20 pm on 14 April a hundred years ago. While the ship was sinking, Captain Smith decided to sink alongand was glorified for his gallantry. So glorified that a statue of him was erected in his hometown, Lichfield, where passers-by may pay their tributes. He was among the 1,522 people who got a watery grave in the icy Atlantic. But a survivors letter now tells a different story about the captain. He was seen drinking at the ships bar before the mishapsounds like dereliction of duty. If it is true, all investigation into the incident was just a farce. On the eve of the centenary, the letter has raised doubts about how the accident occurred. Mrs Emily Richardss letter to her motherin-law written on the rescue ship Carpathia two days after the incident has stirred up a row. The letter is likely to fetch an estimated 20,000 in an auction. She was heading for New York from Southampton with her children, her young brother George, 23, her sister Nellie and mother, Elizabeth. She was to join her husband, who had migrated to the US. Her brother George couldnt make it to the rescue boat, and sank in the icy waters. A shell-shocked Mrs Richards wrote, The boat struck an iceberg at 11oclock on Sunday night. The Captain was down in the saloon drinking and gave charge to someone to steer the ship. While theories about the mishap were spreading, she put it down thus: It was the Captains fault. It seems that at the time

Captain Smith of writing the letter she was still reeling from the shock. It is more than evident in its hurried style with spelling errors. (The parts reproduced from the letter here have been corrected of spelling and grammar mistakes.) According to popular belief, the 62-year old Captain Smith spent the evening at a dinner party in the first class restaurant before retiring to his cabin for the night. But the new revelation provides a striking alternative to this. According to auctioneer Andrew Aldridge the woman would have felt incredibly raw having lost a loved one. So she wanted to blame someone and blamed the captain. Many counter arguments suggest that Emily Richardss account is not consistent with dozens of others. For Captain Smith was largely exonerated by the British enquiry. Also he was glorified for dying an Englishmans death by choosing to go down with the ship. Even a hundred years after the incident, also with a sentimental movie on it, the mishap still haunts humanity. n

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