Great individuals, Great teams

Sometimes offices are nice places of amusement, much better than any zoo or museum - where you can see rare specimens and antiques. The dynamics can be real fun provided you are not involved. One upmanship, never letting go of an oppurtunity to snub a colleague who is perceived as a potential competitor, never sharing expertise or knowledge with colleagues, all these can be fun to watch, but not to become part of.

Probably this is true in almost all spheres of activity in India where individuals rather than teams rule the roost. Often peaks that can be scaled easily by team work become unsurmountable when individual egos dominate.

One thing that has amazed me is how great partnerships have endured in the movie field. There have been fantastic teams like Salim- Javed, Shankar-Jaikishan,Lakshmikant-Pyarelal,Nadeem-Shravan to Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy,Viswanathan-Kannadasan, Vayalar-Devarajan down south. Many partnerships broke but not before carving their name in the annals of history.

I am an avid lover of Tamil film music and like any one who loves music an ardent fan of the legendary maestro Ilaiyaraja. I have been enthralled by the movies which featured the association of Ilaiyaraja with stalwarts like Bharathiraja, Maniratnam, K.Balachandar and Balu Mahendra. One should not forget the great lyricist Vairamuthu who paired with Ilaiyaraja to give mesmerizing songs.

Unfortunately today none of these teams exist except Balu Mahendra who continues to team with the Maestro.

Every time I watch Nayakan or Mounaragam , I feel that the soul of the movies is the maestro's music , apart from Maniratnam's brilliant direction. Just by hearing the background score alone , some of the movies can be identified, such has been the power of his music. It is quite unfortunate that music companies don't release soundtracks of Indian movies . Music lovers should attempt to compile the background scores of the maestro.

The same is true when I watch Alaygal Oyvathillai , Moondram Pirai,Kadalora Kavithaigal , Sindhu bhairavi or Punnagai mannan. The credit for the success of these movies should also go the directors who extracted the best from the Maestro. One should remember that Maniratnam has consistently been able to get amazing scores from the maestro in all his movies right till Dalapathi his last (hopefully not the 'last') movie with the maestro.

When the partnerships broke , whose loss it was, Ilaiyaraja's, Bharathiraja's , KB's or Maniratnam's ? The greatest loss was undoubedly that of the Tamil movie lover's . Never again the magic will be there to mesmerize audiences and music fans.

I feel that these great geniuses had a responsibility to the movie lovers who want their partnerships to go on. Any great team should bury their individual differences towards a common cause , here the tastes of the audience. They can take a leaf or two from the legendary duo of M.S.V- Kannadasan or Vayalar-Devarajan team of Malayalam music. The MSV-Kannadasan team went on for more than two decades till the death of the great poet. They would have had their differences, both were famous , highly talented individuals , but they had the maturity to respect each other, recognised each other's brilliance and let the show go on. Similarly of the Vayalar-Devarajan duo. Vayalar, a highly temperamental but genius of a lyricist. Devarajan master- a no-nonsense , great music director known for his uncompromising , stubborn attitude. The team went on to create hit after hits till the death of the great poet in 1975. They had great respect for each other's talents and never allowed the team to break. They are role models for any teams to emulate and it is worth remembering that before a common cause ( here being the entertainment of the common man who pays money to view their work ) everything else - ego's, individual differences etc etc are trivial. Good teams should be like a good husband and wife who settle all the individual differences before the day ends and face the next day with a positive attitude.

A team should part only by mutual consent when both decide they have nothing more to offer together, and when it is essential that they team up with somebody else to enhance their creativity. They should not part just because of ego.

They tell that for a Koothadi ( a performing artist) has no life or choices of his own. His life is dedicated to the audience, they decide and he merely follows.