Mama K .V.Mahadevan

on Mar 13, 2014

Telugu One remembers “Mama K .V.Mahadevan”

It has been close to 13 years since the great maestro has passed away but we know that it is only the physical being that has moved on. He still remains and is remembered in every South Indian household for the wonderful songs that he created with his magical music baton. With a career spanning 50 years that started in 1942 and sadly stunted in 1992 because of a stroke that left him immobile, he continued to create music for around 600 movies in Telugu,Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam movies . His last Telugu film was K Viswanath’s Swathi Kiranam which fetched him the Filmfare award for best music direction. It was a known fact that K Viswanath worked only with him barring a couple of films where Ilayaraja worked.

“Thirai isai thilagam “and `Swara Brahma' Krishnankoil Venkatachalam Mahadevan's or fondly and still remembered as “Mama”, KV Mahadevan’s tunes were a combination of light classical tunes but with the roots firmly set in Carnatic music by virtue of him being the son of an acclaimed musician in the Travancore Royal Court.

Two National Awards for the movies `Kandan Karunai' (1967) and `Shankarabharanam' (1979) and scores of other regional awards was a proof of his musical genius. He also made some fantastic music for NTR films like Adavi Ramudu etc., ANR’s Mooga Manasulu, Prem Nagar,Bapu’s Muthyala Muggu, Saptapadi, Shrutilayalu and Sirivennala - the list is endless and task daunting to actually segregate the number of Tamil, Telugu, films he has done.

The Telugu audience will and can never forget this maestro and the radio will always have a song invariably played where the RJ says ee paata ku Sangeetham -Sr K V Mahadevan, and the melody follows...