CM hosts lunch for famous actor friends at home

Poes Garden wore a festive look with Chief Minister Jayalalithaa inviting her old colleagues from the tinsel world for a tete-a-tete over lunch at her residence ‘Veda Nilayam’ on Thursday.

The previous evening it was the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which glittered with a galaxy of stars, when Jayalalithaa honoured the Kings of Melody, Viswanathan and Ramamurthi, for their yeoman service to cinema music for over 60 years.

The highlight of the evening was live performance of 57 songs from the timeless repertoire of the ‘Mellisai Mannargals’ who were crowned ‘Chakravathis’ by the Chief Minister at the function.

The organizers left it to Jayalalithaa to select the songs for live performance on the occasion and she listed 57 of the thousands of songs scored by Viswanathan-Ramamurthi.

The first of the songs of the evening presented by MSV’s 100-piece orchestra was Kannadasan’s masterpiece ‘Pullaankuzhal Kodutha Moongilgalae’, originally rendered by T.M. Soundararajan. Among the other songs were an Ilayaraja favourite ‘Maalai Pozhudhin Mayakkathilae’, ‘Aezhu Swarangalukkul’ (the award winning number from K.Balachander’s ‘Apoorva Raagangal’) rendered by Vani Jayaram and ‘Nilavukku En Mael’ a breezy number originally sung by P.B. Srinivos.

The next day (Thursday), Jayalalithaa spent time with a group of famous actors of the 1960s, playback singer P. Susheela and ‘Cho’Ramaswamy. They had a traditional multi-course Tamil meal served on banana leaves. Before leaving they posed for photographs. Those with Jayalalitha were Sowcar Janaki, P. Susheela, Rajashree, Anjali Devi, Jamuna, Saroja Devi, Sukumari, Sachu and Cho Ramaswamy.