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Kotigobba,
starring Vishnuvardhan, has music by Deva, who promptly remakes one of his
Tamil tunes.
After
the spectacular commercial success of Yajamana, the visibly ageing
Vishnuvardhan is the most-in-demand hero in Kannada again. When that film
was still in the middle of its record run, the trade papers were raving
about its profits: Rs 20 crore.
Shabdavedhi
was Rajkumar's last film, after which his life has taken many unexpected
turns. The Kannada superstar hasn't yet made a film after he was kidnapped
and released. Younger heroes like Shivarajkumar and Ravichandran are acting
in big budget films, quite a few of them remakes. Sudeep has turned himself
into a hot new hero, after his Sparsha and Huchcha became
hits.
Kotigobba is a remake. This Vishnuvardhan starrer has music by
Deva. I don't know if all these tunes have been lifted from the Tamil -- I
definitely know one of them is.
The album opens with a song in praise of god Nanjunda, which is the name by
which Shiva is worshipped in the temple town of Nanjangud near Mysore. It
begins with a chant, and then goes off into folksy-sounding rhythm patterns.
Deva must be a specialist in this genre. He made a similar song in Tamil, Kavalepadaade
sahodara, which is considered his trademark number. That song begins
catchily enough, but Deva is no singer. In the Kannada song, he gets S P
Balasubramanyam to do the honours.
Kaverige kalungura is a love song which has a strange line:
Namma
preetigerade akshara
Adaraala Gowrishankara
(Our love needs only two words
It's deep as the Gowri-Shankara)
K Kalyan ambushed me with this line that sounded absurd. All these years I
had imagined Gowrishankara to be a snow-capped mountain in the Himalayan
range. Kalayan makes it out to be something that's "deep", so
either I am wrong, or Kalyan is wrong, or the mountain has become a valley.
The first song on Side B, Are thai thai thandana, has some Hindi
lines sung by a male and a female voice, both not given credit. The song is
credited only to SPB.
Saahasa simha is a replica of Autoraja autoraja from a Tamil
film starring Rajnikanth, and praises Vishnuvardhan as a great action hero
and upholder of justice. There's a lot of such trash about the incredible
virtues of the hero in all these hero-dominated melodramas that
Vishnuvardhan stars in these days.
The last song on the album, Vardhana Vishnuvardhana , makes
references to the real-life personalities of the star and his wife. The
heroine (playback by Chitra) calls hims by his real-life name, and he in
turn calls his heroine by the name of Bharati (the actress he is married to
in real life).
An ad jingle at the end of Side B gives you an interesting sidelight. Mars
Music has produced a non-stop disco version of old Vishnuvardhan hits. It
includes songs like Preetiye nannusiru (music: Bappi Lahiri), Naa
haadalu (music: Rajan Nagendra) and Baare baare (music
Vijayabhaskar). It's sung presumably by "orchestra" singers and is
not from the original soundtrack. In fact, it brought home to me some much
loved Vishnuvardhan melodies from yesteryear. I wouldn't go so far as to
recommend that tape, but maybe you could pick up his old songs in the
original if they are available in a compilation.
The title Kotigobba means "one in a crore", but its
album has nothing to make it so precious.
Amritamati S
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