Dear Friends,

First of all, let me apologize for being a day late in posting the minutes of the First Meeting of ‘Friends for Good Music’, which was held at JD Hall in Loyola College, Chennai between 4 pm and 7 pm on Sunday, March 20, 2005. The meeting was organized by Tamil Maiyam (www.tamilmm.com) and Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilaiyaraaja). It was a refreshing evening that we spent there, immersed in discussion on good music and the need of it to be supported. The banners displayed at the entrance of the main block and those at JD Hall were much helpful for the venue to get its colour and for the participants to recognize the exact location of the hall. I wonder even now, how it was possible for Mr S Kothandaraman, from Vellore and Mr S Kamaraj, who worked as an assistant director in the movie ‘Kaamaraaj’, to get the banners ready within such a short notice!

Though interested participants started coming right from 3 pm at which time we were only getting the banners erected and planning the events with the help of our members who had come early, as JD Hall was not opened then, the real spirit of the meeting lit up by 4:30 pm when the audience were prepared for the start of the event and all arrangements had been made. Thanks to forwarded emails, FM radios, coverage in web & press media, contacts of Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj, the Founder of Tamil Maiyam, who has integrated the whole project of ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ and of course, the members of our Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club, the meeting recorded the presence of 72 attendees, including the organizers.

The meeting started off with Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj narrating the story behind ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ – the idea, its motive, birth, evolution and its growth to completion now. He mentioned that good music in India has a tough time today due to the imprisonment of music under the locks of cinema, audio piracy and lack of initiative from the side of the audience to support good music. He was happy that the sabhas are taking care of the well-being of our classical Carnatic Music, which would not have stood today amidst the fast world and globalization. He added further that we live in a country where even a great music composer like Ilaiyaraaja had to wait for two years to get a classical crossover project based on our ancient devotional literature, ‘Thiruvasakam’ recorded and released, only because of lack of funds and due to the fear of the audio companies about the commercial viability of the project, because of the enormous growth of audio piracy and swaying away of the audience from good music.

He mentioned that though they had somehow managed to complete the recording of ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ by means of public donations and loans, they did not want to have only the commercial success of the album in mind. Thiruvasakam, he said, was a test that would take one so easily near God and was one of the best devotional literatures he had ever read. Therefore, the motive of the project was to remind the youth of the availability of such literary treasures in our country and Ilaiyaraaja was quite strong in that idea. He expressed that he was worried to think why our literary and spiritual treasures were not known to foreign countries, though we are well-informed about the literature from various nations of the world. The reason for that was lack of our attempt to present them to the western world in a form that they could understand, he felt. Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj felt confident that ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ would definitely fill the gap and make way for future projects like ‘Thirukkural’, ‘Thiruppaavai’ and even non-devotional literature which would not be featured in cine music. He was for a starting a group that would encourage good mainstream music, completely free from the clutches of cinema, that would bring in an era where composers of good music need not have any difficulty in crafting and marketing their creation. For that, he wanted ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ to be a success model as to make a hopeful beginning. He made it clear that if a person of Ilaiyaraaja’s caliber is utilized for composing nothing more than cine music, then it would be a great loss that we incur for the coming generations of our country.

Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj thanked Mr K Pandia Rajan, Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd and Mr Gerald who were present at the meeting, for having financially supported ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ project during its critical final stages, without which they would have really been stuck. He also thanked Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club, founded and moderated by Dr J Vijay Venkatraman, for its dedicated involvement in the project ever since its inception. He thanked Ramji, Narasimman, Kothandaraman and all the members of the club for helping him to organize the meeting at Loyola College. He was very much grateful to everybody who was supportive in the project and requested them to come forward to form the core group for ‘Friends for Good Music’, as ‘Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club’ is to ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’.

Mr K Pandiarajan was full of enthusiasm and mentioned that good music must have its day. He confidently declared that Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj’s vision of a network of 50000 friends for good music throughout the world within 5 years was an understatement and with the power of the Internet and the mass media, such numbers could be attained much easily. He motivated the group saying that everything began from a small start and Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj remarked that Pandia Rajan himself was an example for astounding growth in a short span of time.

Mr Anandaraj, an IT Professional, spoke about the marketing pattern that was to be followed for ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’, because he feared that any compromise in it would make the project unreachable to the masses. He volunteered that he could work for the project’s publicity in whatever way he could, as he had many friends in the media.

Mr J Surendran and his wife Mrs A Sheela Mary, who are music teachers and run a music school of their own, offered to get access to all music schools in Chennai and to see to that each school buys an original audio CD of ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’. They also announced that they would teach Maestro’s compositions to their students who come to learn music, as children’s minds had to be tamed to good music from the beginning itself so that they would develop a good musical taste when they grow into adulthood.

Mr N Vignesh, a Mechanical Engineer, put forward a proposal of a musical showdown by the alumni of TEKMUSIC (the music club of PSG College of Technology) to which he belonged, as a ticketed programme on a weekend in Chennai, consisting varieties of songs compose by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja alone and the profits of which would go towards the publicity and promotion of ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja.’ He further suggested that we could use paid downloadable formats of the product in addition to thinking of sales of audio CD’s and cassettes alone. His friend, Mr S Aravind, talked about novel concepts of marketing, supplementing Vignesh’ ideas.

Mr S Athitha Nadarajan, an IT Professional, felt that ‘Thiruvasakam’ or ‘Tamil’ would come to forefront by themselves and hence it was more important to advertise ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ as a great musical composition rather than a devotional compilation or a literary marvel. He suggested that we could advertise for the album through a short promo during the interval timings in cinema houses where popular films are shown.

Mr Nirmal Kumar Damodaran started his talk with an anecdote from his experience of working in a call centre. They had been allowed to listen to whatever CD’s they wanted to listen while working and his colleagues had always been playing only English pop songs. One fine day, he got an opportunity to play Ilaiyaraaja’s ‘How To Name It?’ and only a few of his colleagues found it interesting. The others could not just understand the music. He pleaded with them and asked for one more day, by the end of which everybody started appreciating it and two youngsters born and brought up in Tamil Nadu asked him who the composer of ‘How To Name It?’ was. Nirmal felt very bad that they had thought that Ilaiyaraaja was just a film music composer and nothing above it. He stressed upon the fact that it was our duty to explain to the world that we have a great composer among us and ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ should be successful for that, as the first step. He assured his complete support for the implementation of the same.

Mr A T Udayakumar, who runs a music troupe, assured to publicize the project in his shows (Most of us might remember that Mr S Kothandaraman from Vellore has already started doing it). Mr K S Sasikumar, Newsreader in Jaya TV, was very happy that his friend Gerald had brought him there and assured that he would take part in ‘Friends for Good Music’. J T Muruganandham remembered his days at college during the late seventies, which were enriched by Ilaiyaraaja’s early songs and he declared that he would get at least ten audio CD’s of ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ to distribute to his friends and would buy even more after the sales. Mr Muthukumaran suggested that we should achieve the target of making all our members buy one CD each, at least and then, we could plan for an online sales counter which would collect money from the buyers and then send the original CD’s by courier to their addresses.

Dr J Nandha, an ENT surgeon, made a reference to writer Sujatha’s column, ‘Katradhum Petradhum’ in Ananda Vikatan, in which he had mentioned that he would invite Ilaiyaraaja to take up the work of the alwars too after the latter completes Thiruvasakam. Dr Nandha mentioned that would be possible only if ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ became a hit and for that he requested all the fans of Ilaiyaraaja to take forward this album as their own. Mr Karthikeya Sundaram, a Senior IT Professional, mentioned that even flower markets needed advertisement today. He strongly felt that ‘Thiruvasakam’ was above all religions and not sticking to Hinduism alone because apart from the ending word, ‘Sivane’, the meaning would hold good for Jesus Christ or Allah or any other deity for that fact. In an age where chaos is the rule, a classical piece of literature reflecting religious harmony by spreading the word “God is One” would be the order of the day, he added and promised support to the project through all possible means.

Mr A Clement, a Chartered Accountant, put forth his queries as to whether the distribution of audio cassettes & CD’s of ‘Thiruvasakam by Ilaiyaraaja’ could be carried out through churches. He also assured that he could get some sponsors for the album and he was already talking this through to Colgate. During his reply to Mr Clement, Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj encouraged him to get presenting sponsorship from multinational companies like the one Clement mentioned, as that would virtually bring the financial load on Tamil Maiyam to a minimum. Currently, the secular organization is paying money in lakhs every month, as interest for the loans that it has incurred for producing the album. He assured that most of the churches and catholic organizations were in support of him in this project and he mentioned that his bishop had really appreciated him for doing this project, as inter-religious dialogue was one of the duties of a catholic priest for maintaining religious harmony. Therefore, there is no necessity for anybody to feel that way, he added.

Then, I (Dr J Vijay Venkatraman) requested the microphone for a few minutes to briefly reply to the queries of Muthukumaran and Vignesh, apart from suggesting a few ideas. I replied that most of the members of Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club would buy at least one CD each, as they have promised to do so. The remainder is not sure whether the CD’s will be available in their country, as our club has no geographical limits. But, I said I believed the CD’s would reach all countries throughout the world. Regarding online sales, I pointed out that Project GEM (http://project-gem.tripod.com) had already been successful in selling CD’s of Ilaiyaraaja’s compositions through the Internet to members of our club. There were also websites like www.maebag.com where one could order many original Malayalam CD’s online and get them delivered at home. Hence, I mentioned that we could set up a similar counter in Tamil Maiyam for the same and use Tamil Maiyam’s website itself for collection of orders.

I further suggested that ‘Friends for Good Music’ could be formed as a separate Yahoo Group by Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj himself and some other dignitary like Mr K Pandia Rajan. Volunteers willing to work as moderators under Father’s directions could do the execution part of the work, while Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj sets the concepts, I added. Regarding the launch function, we could plan it as a grand ticketed one and the buyer would get entry for the function, the original audio CD, the DVD of ‘The Making of Thiruvasakam By Ilaiyaraaja’ and a couple of books written by Ilaiyaraaja, I suggested and it was well-received. I suggested to Vignesh that we might allow only paid listening to the tracks online and would not allow them to be downloaded as any end user may be able to copy it in a CD. But Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj felt that online listening in bits and pieces would not hold good for the professional level that the product was conceived and executed at. Finally, we sorted out some other issues and came to the following conclusions:

1. To support good music, all of us will buy only original CD’s and cassettes for listening to music. We will not buy any pirated format or download music through the Internet. We will not forward to anybody, any non-original means of listening to music online and not use them even if they reach us too.

2. All of us will start spreading the message above to all our contacts. We will buy and make sure that all our contacts get ‘Thiruvasakam By Ilaiyaraaja’ in its original form.

3. We will form a core group for ‘Friends For Good Music’ and will meet often to promote good music.

4. From now on, the meeting of all the members of ‘Friends For Good Music’ will be held once in two months at Santhome Communications Centre, 150, Luz Church Road, Mylapore, Chennai – 600 004, preferably on a Sunday. It will be a two-hour meet and while the first hour would be full of discussion, the second would be full of musical performances.

5. The group will communicate through a Yahoo Group that will be a different one from Ilaiyaraaja Yahoo Group. It will be under the control of Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj and some of our volunteers will be its moderators, working under the principles and plans of Rev Fr Jegath Gasper Raj and whoever else he suggests. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ffgm - the group has been created, but it has not been announced formally till now. Members are welcome to join by sending a blank mail to ffgm-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the meantime, I will ask Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj to join, so that I can make him the group owner and step down to the level of a member, as moderation of Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club itself is enough work for me. I hope all of you will understand me.)

6. In addition to the existing list of volunteers from Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club for field work in the marketing of ‘Thiruvasakam By Ilaiyaraaja’, some of the attendees of the meeting were ready to join the same. They will join Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilaiyaraaja) by sending a blank mail to ilaiyaraaja-subscribe@yahoogroups.com as soon as possible and send a mail to the club stating that they want to join as a volunteer, following which they will be added in our database of volunteers and will be requested to work as a team with us then and there, depending on the need and the location of the member. People residing abroad can also volunteer.

Finally, it was time for the end as the hall was rented only till 7 pm. In the meanwhile, we had ‘Oorusanam Thoongiruchu’ song recited by Mrs P Nandhini, an IT Professional, for a break. Her mellifluous singing brought everyone to their best spirit and people started accompanying her song by humming, following Rev Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj! Mrs S Aloysius, mother of Mr A Clement, was another singer of the day. She surprised all of us by a Carnatic Recital in Simmendhra Madhyamam raaga on Jesus Christ! It was nice to see that music could easily take over religion and needless to say, she did it perfectly!

There was another singer in the gathering. He sang many songs which the audience had never heard, but are waiting with lots of patience in full musical appetite (as rightly pointed out by Mr Karthikeya Sundaram)! Can you guess? Yes – it was Rev Fr Jegath Gasper Raj and the songs he sang were the ones composed and rendered by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja for ‘Thiruvasakam By Ilaiyaraaja’! For every song, the crowd came up with thunderous claps and we only needed more and more of it! But not taking any credit, Father said, “Wait to get the full product, with 90 violins and lots of other instruments to support the voice track because that is where Ilaiyaraaja’s uniqueness comes in play – when the vocal part can reach the masses, the accompaniment alone can be played without the lyrics, as a separate symphony for the western world to enjoy!”

Thus, the three hours passed in a jiffy leaving us the least bit tired but more optimistic and hopeful about the future of good music! Let us all strive for originality and meaning in music to reign!

Yours Always Musically,
Dr J Vijay Venkatraman.
Founder & Moderator, Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Fans Club at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilaiyaraaja