Let’s go back almost 60 years back to 1960 and this particular movie titled Mannathi Mannan which is a 1960 Tamil movie starring M. G. Ramachandran, Anjali Devi and Padmini in the lead roles and with music scored by Maestro MSV. The story for the movie was actually written by the famous poet Kannadasan. Image source: Amazon
This Tamil movie tells of a Tamil prince (played by MGR) who falls in love with a dancer (played by Padmini) after winning a dance competition. He however faces stiff competition from an evil King who also falls for the dancer.
The prince’s father however not agree that his son to marry just a dancer arranges a wedding with another King’s daughter but there was a conflict with this as well. In the end, the dancer unites the prince with the princess and dies.
There are several famous songs from this movie but the one that stands out would be this song, Kaniya Kaniya Mazhai Pesum sung by T. M. Soundararajan & P. Susheela. Kannadasan wrote very meaningful lyrics (what else expected from the poet) for this song.
The nice touch of the birds’ chirping as the hero enters the garden was the fashion back in the 1950s and 1960s. It starts with TMS who seems to be calling out for the heroine who then emerges to meet her lover.
Watch out for the guitar strings at the end of the initial verses which adds a nice touch to the exchange between male & female duets. The music before chorus then goes into nice tabla composition coupled with the violin.
This is actually a very lovely duet by MSV between MGR and Padmini who looks very young, beautiful and innocent in the song scene. A better Tamil song from the golden years compared to some of the nonsense these days.