Lyricist Vaali passes away

Lyricist Vaali, who secured a place on a par with Kannadasan at a time the latter strode like a colossus in the Tamil film music world, died in Chennai on Thursday evening.

Vaali, who dominated the film world for over five decades and wrote songs for many a protagonist played by actors from MGR to Dhanush, was not well for quite some time. He was in hospital for over a month. He was 82 and is survived by his son.

His songs were packed with brilliant lines and imagery and there were times when Tamil film music buffs were at their wits' end to discern whether a particular song was written by Kannadasan or Vaali.

On the one hand, he wrote songs like Madhavi Ponmayilal, Ammavendrazhaikatha uyirillaye, Naanaga naan illai and Janani janani that transported the listener to a different plane, on the other he entertained the masses with low-brow songs such as chikkupukku chikkupukku railay, mukkala muqabla and singari sarakku nalla sarakku.




Overwhelmed by his the brilliant imagery of the lines in the song Pakkathu Veetu Paruva Matchan in the film Karpagam, Kannadasan declared in a public meeting that Vaali would be his heir-apparent. It was in this function in 1963, Viswanathan and Ramamurthy were given the title Mellisai Mannargal.

Though he had written songs for MGR, Sivaji Ganesan and present day heroes, he could easily be described a “poet laureate” of former Chief Minister MGR.



If MGR made films with political message that would stand by him in good stead in the days to come, Vaali’s lines reinforced his ideas.