Book Brahma Literature Festival: Poetry in cinema, music and action

The three-day festival is evoking good response in the city.

Bengaluru: Music for the silver screen must not be treated as lesser than written poetry, just as a different and specialised skill, noted poet, writer, and lyricist Jayant Kaikini on a panel on day one of the Book Brahma literature festival.

For Kaikini, film music is integral to everyday life. 

“In India, film songs act as background music for generations, which is a matter of pride unique to our country. Everyone will find a song to hum for themselves. We have always sought energy to get through our daily hardships through cinema music,” he said, explaining that the social dynamics behind cinema music must not be taken lightly.

It is a unique challenge to write poetic lines for cinema, he said, admitting that he didn’t fully comprehend the difficulty until he got around to doing it himself.

Interspersed with the discussions were the melodious film tunes by famed playback singer Nagachandrika Bhat, lines borrowed from poetry or previous literature that were then dissected by film director P Sheshadri and postmodern writer N S Shreedhara Murthy.

Choosing the right literature and poetry to match the tone of the film and compose music that ties everything together is also a challenge, noted Murthy. Additionally, technology has overpowered the process of making music for film, noted Kaikini, and many directors are no longer lovers of literature, which is making the process difficult.

The multilingualism in the county merely offers a tool to tie people across cultures together through cinema music, which has no pretension and is "just as one speaks", said Kaikini.

At the main hall, Manasi Sudhir performed poetry in action, enacting popular poems and children's songs through spoken word, music and drama.