Lyricist Bharinikaavu Shivakumar passes away

Noted lyricist and poet Bharanikaavu Shivakumar passed away following a heart failure on January 24. Bharanikaavu Shivakumar, who had penned lyrics for more than 500 films in Malayalam, had not been very active in films for quite some time and was living in Thiruvananthapuram. He was 60.

Born on June 17, 1947 as the son of Azhakaththu Narayanan Unnithan and Bhavani Kunjamma, Shivakumar had inherited literary and artistic skills from his parents, his father being a painter and teacher and mother a musician. He inherited poetic skills from his grandfather, the noted poet Azhakaththu Padmanabha Kurup. Shivakumar proved himself as a short-story writer, novelist, journalist, columnist, and scenarist and even had a stint as a college lecturer.

It was with the A. Vincent-directed Chenda that Bharanikaavu Shivakumar made his entry into films. The song that marked his debut in films was "Panchami thirunaal...". Subsequently he wrote the lyrics for over 500 films and bagged the State Award for the Best Lyricist in 1975 for the songs he wrote for Kaamam, Krodham. Moham. Those award winning songs are still among the favourite Malayalam film songs.

Bharanikaavu Shivakumar had also worked for some time as a directorial associate to Adoor Gopalakrishnan and had in 1980 directed the film Yamuna, which he had scripted and for which he had penned the lyrics and had even scored the music. But the film never got released. He had also done the lyrics for many television serials. Shivakumar leaves behind his wife Omana and a daughter and a repertoire of everlasting songs.