Malayalam Films of Salil Chowdhury

Nellu (1974)
(Malayalam)
Director: Ramu Kariat

Lyrics: Vayalar

Title Music

Nr

Song

Singer(s)

Other known variations

Hnd Mal Tam Tel Kan Bng Oth

NL1

Chemba Chemba P.Jayachandran
Manna Dey
 - - - - -

MA4

-

NL2

Kadali Chenkadali Lata Mangeskar - - AK2 - -

SM13

OB36

NL3

Neela ponmane K.J.Yesudas
P.Madhuri		 - - - - - SM15 GS3/BJ2

NL4

Kaadu Kuliranu P.Susheela - - - - - - -
Another masterly work by the great Ramu Kariat and Salil Chowdhury team who already us the legendary "Chemmeen". This film is about the tribal people of the Wynad hills in the deep Kerala forests. Beautiful green forests with mountains and the wonderful music of the tribal people. Rumour has it that in one of the songs which required sound of drums, Salil actually went to the forests and heard the drums the way the locals played and created his own wonderful introduction to the song "chemba chemba".
Incidently, Balu Mahendra, the well-known film director and cinematographer who has also worked with Salilda was really impressed with the way Salilda had incorporated the folk music of the Wynad tribals into the Nellu songs. Balu Mahendra directed two films which has beautiful music by Salilda - "Kokila" (Kannada) and "Aziyatha Kolangal" (Tamil).
Nellu also has some superb background music. I managed to catch a small bit - a wonderful flute version of that song "o laali re laali laali" from Salilda's only Gujarati film "Ghar Sansaar". This songs bengali version is of course Sandhya Mukherjee's unforgettable "O neel neel paakhi".