Veteran Malayalam Music Composer MK Arjunan Passes Away in Kochi

Veteran music director in the Malayalam film industry, MK Arjunan, fondly called Arjunan Master, has passed away at his residence in Palluruthy, Kochi. He was 84 and was suffering from age related ailments.

In an illustrious career spanning over five decades, Arjunan scored music for more than 600 songs in over 200 Malayalam films. He also worked extensively in plays. Most of his songs were all-time super hits.

His evergreen melodies have placed master Arjunan among the legendary composers of Malayalam cinema like G Devarajan, V Dakshinamoorthy and MS Baburaj.

Arjunan was also known for recording the first song of legendary Carnatic vocalist and playback singer KJ Yesudas when the latter was just 16 years old and gave the chance to Oscar winning musician AR Rahman to play the keyboard in a film.

Born in a family in Fort Kochi on March 1, 1936, Arjunan entered into the world of composing by giving tunes for theatre songs.

Arjunan worked with the doyens of Malayalam movie lyrics like Vayalar and P Bhaskaan but his collaboration with lyricist Sreekumaran Thampi is rated as of the most popular composer-lyricist pair in the industry.

Though he got awards and accolades for theatre songs many times, Arjunan had to wait till 2017 to receive the best music composer title in a film.

He received the Kerala state award for the song in Jayaraj directed movie Bhayanakam in 2017. Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, was among those who condoled his passing away.

Sharing the sad news of Arjunan's demise, Resul Pookutty tweeted, “My heartfelt condolences .... many of your tunes are etched in my memory, your artistry has shaped up many generations of music lovers! Your absence is a vacuum.... RIP (sic).”

(With inputs from PTI)

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