When many covers are made of a song it indicates a degree of popularity. When it is hummed or sung by people who do not consider themselves artists, that’s popularity at a different level altogether.
This is a story of a song with a song-introduction. First, the intro. M.S. Fernando’s highly popular ‘Kaekiri paelena tikiri sinaavai.’ Like thousands of others I’ve heard the ‘MS version’. Like thousands of others, probably, I haven’t heard any covers of that song. But I sing it and sing along when others sing it.
On Friday night I did listen to a cover of the song. Just voice and guitar. I told myself ‘MS himself would have applauded.’ It was nothing like I’ve ever heard. The rendition said a lot about the artist’s voice, musical ability and creativity of the artist, Sanjeew Lonliyes.
Sanjeew sang his original compositions, apart from this and another song by Gunadasa Kapuge (lyrics by Ratna Sri Wijesinghe), ‘Sinhala sindu kiyana….’ The lyrics were mostly his. The melodies too. The audience, mostly students of the Sri Palee Campus of the Colombo University, seemed very familiar with the songs. I, on the other hand, was hearing them for the very first time.
Someone, one day, will write a comprehensive review of Sanjeew Lonliyes’ work. As for me, I just wanted to share some thoughts inspired by what he sang and some of the things he said when invited to comment on two or three of the songs. This not being a review, I will limit myself to a song and its rendition which in many ways spoke to and of a genre and a philosophy.
The title of the song: yakada manamaali (the iron bride). It’s the story of a poor man from a remote village who sculpts a bride using pieces of metal. Sanjeew, in a way, uses this particular song as the thematic creative for the political and philosophical tenets that signature his work as an artist.
As a prelude to one of his songs, Sanjeew spoke about the trials and tribulations of people who struggle to bring out the artists trapped within themselves, as he put it. In other words, to create, share and engage. The stories behind the screen are largely unknown. The struggles that precede the show, so to say, are unseen. As for Sanjeew, he said that those unheard and unseen behind-the-screen, before-the-show story is what he finds most endearing.
That would be the rough-cut, then. He’s made an art of it clearly and names it as it is, amu or raw. Amu sindu or raw songs, amu culture or raw culture. That’s songs, art, culture and ways of being and becoming that come without frills, without cosmetics. It seems he has struck a chord that resonates with many people, going by his fan following and the degree of familiarity with his work among young people. They knew Yakada manamaali. They sang along.
There’s art that’s seen, reviewed and celebrated. There’s another kind of art. The amu art of the amu people, those who are unseen, unrecognised, insulted and humiliated even, and, in the rare occasion of recognition whose innocence and helplessness are exploited.
From old and discarded pieces
a shining and tender iron bride
a row of rusted callouses I did see
the jungle vaeddah’s iron bride
And here’s the back story:
These are iron bouquets that will not decay
the softest pieces I’d rather not in Colombo sell
and yet the little one’s cry and the woman my return awaits
there are flowers of all kinds that in the forest itself fade and perish
Sanjeew alludes to the political economy of the creative exercise. The amuness, if you will, of it all. Appropriate it is then for the discourse itself to be coloured, perfumed and framed by amuness.
There’s a line from another song (‘Vahannata epaa kisaka uda boththama,’ or ‘Keep the top button undone, always’) written by the celebrated young poet Timran Keerthi, an amu poet who has lived an amu life: ‘bana pothak vagei karagaeta pirunu ath deka’ (the callous-ridden hands are like a philosophical text).
Those hands, those callouses are known to those they belong to, those who have similar hands and those who have the eyes to see such hands. They don’t always belong to those who have the luxury of standing up, waving hands and screaming ‘here I am, come see my hands.’ That’s a given when it comes to amu people living amu lives in an amu society. They can be read though.
But rawness pervades. Rawness breaks through the well-polished surfaces of mediocrity, deceit, plunder and overall subjugation. Wait, no. Rawness is made to break through such carefully crafted screens that hide and lie. You need an amu personality, conscious of his amuness and determined to turn it into a mirror that reflects reality using the amu-potency of melody, musical arrangement, lyrics and audience-engagement.
Sanjeew Lonliyes is such a man. He is unpretentious. He is unwrapping pretension. One layer at a time.
www.malindawords.blogspot.com.
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