I was reading thru the bio of Periasami Thooran at http://entertainment.vsnl.com/thooran/T ... raphy.html

A few points stand out. He:
1. had a graduate degree in pure maths and astronomy!
2. has written several books on psychology, even one on embryology!
3. worked on Tamil and children's encyclopedia

Some of his famous compositions:
tAye tripurasundari - SuddhasAveri
murugA murugA - savEri
kaliyuga varadan - brindAvana sAranga

He passed away as recently as 1987, but there doesn't seem to be a single picture of his available anywhere!

You might be able to get one from his son Swathanthira Tooran.

Lakshman - I was more expressing surprise that no photo of his is available in the public domain, while pictures of musicians from an earlier era are more easily found.

Btw, was listening to a TKG rendition of the sAranga kriti gaNanAdhane - great composition.

Late.Periaswamithooran also composed one bakthi soaked composition on Kanchi Mahaperiyava in sahana.This was also sung by MSS and other artistes during H.H. centenary.

I think this is the song you are refering to:

enna perum tavam. rAgA: shahAnA. Adi tALA.

P: enna perum tavam yAm sheidad-ariyEnE ennaiyum kAnci muni AtkoNDad-en sholvEn
A: munnam Or Alin kizh mOnamAi kai kATTi shonnadai vAi malarndE shollidaruL sheyya
C: naTamADum deivamAi nAm pOTra vandavar mAnilattOr uyya tava yOgam koNDavar
viDaiyErum puNNiyar maNaivAm bhagavat pAdar nINDu vandAr avar menmalar tAzh pOTra

I recently found out that P.Tooran has also composed varNAs. One in madhyAmavati with the starting words murugA endAruyirE has been rendered by Bombay Sisters.

You can find this beautiful song (in addition to a few others) here:
http://www.geocities.com/pthooran/Thoor ... hanas.html

Lakshman - a few words in MS's rendition are different from what you have given, esp the last line she sings 'viDaiyErum puNNiyar vaDivAm...'

Periyasamy Thooran has composed kritis in extremely rare ragas like Raviswaroopini, Sheelaangi and many more... It's a pity these are hardly ever sung... I've only heard the 4 popular songs mentioned above.

Some Periasami Thooran songs that have been rendered by various artistes


gaNanAdanE - sAranga
kAlakkAlan kailainAthan - aTAnA
puNNiyam oru kODi - kIravANi (on paramAcharyA)
sAmagAnapriyE - Anandabhairavi
pazhani ninra - kApi
Adi shankara - pUrvikalyANi
hariharasuta - Aboghi
appA unnai maravEnE pazhani - biLahari

The Madhyamavathi varnam is muruga enadAruyire

For lyrics and a commentary on this song you can visit the following URL:
http://www.chennaionline.com/musicnew/t ... song14.asp

Lakshman:
I don't intend to take this into a language discussion but can you check in your text whether the word is naDamADum rather than naTamADum?

naDamADum means "walking" while naTamAdum means dancing. The context here refers to the divine nature of the AcAryAL and tUran refers to him as a "walking God" i.e., God on earth in flesh and blood. I realize this is one of the peculiarities of usage of the soft and hard "D' and "T". Since the compositiion is in Thamizh there should not be any transpositional errors. By the rules of grammar "Ta" sound cannot appear in the middle of a word. I am fairly sure tUran means "naDamADum". Any thoughts?

I listened to the "enna tavam" song sung by MS at the URL given. The vruttam and the song do really melt your heart(as is characteristic of sahAnA).

After listening to the song (MS's pronunciation is really perfect), there are a few more corrections in the words that should be mentioned.

1. yAm ---> yAn (yAm signifies royal/plural we--the following word is "ennaiyum" which is singular and hence the word should be yAn to denote singular noun)

2. kizh --> kIzh ( Alin kIzh =under the banyan tree)

3. shollidaruL ---> solliyaruL

4. mAnilattOr ----> nAnilattOr (both words mean pretty much the same but MS pronounces it as nAnilattOr)

5. maNaivAm ---> vaDivAm ( form)

6. nINDu ---> mINDum (return, again)

Can someone please point me where I can find an image of Sri Periasami Thooran? Thanks !!

One is on an album cover of Ganamandirr's release on the composer's compositions. Scroll down on this page: http://www.ganamandir.org/studio.htm

Vannakkam, Rasikas of Late Padhmabhushan Shri M.P.Periaswami Thooran. I appreiciate

your interest in the compositions of Thooran. He has not only composed keerthanas ( about

300 )but also contributed in all the branches of Tamil Literature including stories and poems

for children containing moral lessons. He was the editor of Tamil Encyclopedia ( was the first

amongst regional languages at the time it was published).

I will be very happy to furnish any more information about him and his contribution to tamil.

Gana naadane - Song # 1 in first file (inside Zip file) by Bushany Kalyanaraman - Sangeethapriya - TVG link

A small photo of P.Tooran is available here:

http://jeevagv.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog-post_27.html

Lji,

Thanks for that link. I have posted a direct link here.



Arasi,

I am sure you noticed the poet extraordinaire in the background!:)

Lakshman,
Thank you for the picture!

Ravi,
Mais oui! One of our important composers of recent times.
Well, a gentle man, a gentleman too, as I remember him from my childhood days. Had the fortune of meeting him a few times. Soft spoken, radiating that kind of a soul as you see in the photograph but I remember that he looked even better in person.