SPB – Sachin of Music

As the dust settles on the grave of the great man of music, looking at the outpouring of grief on social media about the famed singer, makes one wonder on the kind of life lead by him. To me he is a statistician’s nightmare, similar to Sachin. 40K songs across so many languages!! It is an impossible record to beat for any singer of this generation or upcoming generations. The survival instinct and capability to stretch his career well over 5 decades, maintaining his longevity is another impossible feat to match or even come close. With so many singers shooting up from every channel’s talent hunt and with so many music directors shooting up, picking voices from any and everywhere, there are plenty of fish in the ocean. Quite possibly there could’ve been an equally big crowd when SPB was making his splash as well. But how he managed to out do everyone of his competitor and picked every opportunity that came his way or other is probably a lesson to learn in survival and adaptation for present and future generation of singers. There was a time when any other singer or any other voice being even thought of was out of question for the music card on movie titles by default had “SPB, P.Suseela, S.Janaki”. Malaysia Vasudevan, Mano still managed to make a name for themselves alongside the phenomenon that was happening and growing by the name SPB. His versatility, his adaptability, his attitude, his multiskilled personality and above all god’s gift of a voice and music knowledge that he had inborn without proper training, made this genius a lovable personality by everyone. His tv shows would’ve paved a great way in him becoming the persona he was identified with I guess. He will wind up his shows with positive messages, positive feedback, lovely wishes and words of encouragements for all the participants of the show. He will also wax eloquent about the musicians who gave him those songs. I’ve never seen him being critical of anyone on TV but have heard of incidents when he came out as a tough disciplinarian during his live music shows. With such a volume of songs it is quite natural that no one will have any song in their playlist which doesn’t have the name SPB in the singers column. His songs about the moon and their blockbuster nature probably earned him the analogy of “Paadum nila”. Lot of my favorite songs are sung by him and I’ven’t even realized the impact of him on my playlist till the time I actually verified the songs post his demise. There are certain things that we take for granted and assume will be immortal. Rather, if I’ve to put in a different way, people will not realize that there is expiry for certain things or beings, for they are already immortal. It is difficult to think of a scenario when there wouldn’t be oxygen, for we always expect it to be there. SPB has been that way for any music lovers and his death is something of a confused scenario where in people find it difficult to comprehend, how a voice that is always there on their ears can not be there physically. Probably we are not ready to accept immortality as yet, going by what is witnessed post the demise of this great man. Whatever the case may be, SPB will always be a name synonymous with songs and music. Like wine his voice matured into sweetness with age and more than his initial year songs, his mid and later year renderings will continue to survive the test of time.