‘Neelambari’, a musical show and fund raising programme, in memory of the beloved poet Gireesh Puthenchery, by his friends and wellwisherse, was peroformed at the packed Swapna Nagari Ground in Kozhikode last Saturday. The function commenced with the lines of Ashtapathi ``Vande mukunda hare..’’ sung by Nikhil, which was presented in `Devasuram’. Yesudas, P. Jayachandran, M.G. Sreekumar, Chithra, Sujatha, Ilaiyaraja, Johnson, Ouseppachan, M. Jayachandran, Raghukumar, Rajamani, Mohanlal, Dileep, Nedumudi Venu, Kavya Madhavan, Padmapriya, Samvritha Sunil, Manoj K. Jayan, Biju Menon, G. Venugopal, Sreenivas, Swetha, Manjari, Gayathri, Rimy Tomy, Devanand, Vijay Yesudas, Biju Narayanan, Afzal, Sathyan Anthikad, Ranjit, Jayaraj, Kamal, Lal Jose and V.M. Vinu were there to pay homage to Gireesh.
Evening at 7.15 Mohanlal lit the `nilavilak’ to inaugurate the function. Later Ilaiyaraja appeared on the stage. He shared his memories with Girish, “When we joined to compose the songs for ‘Kaala paani,’, an impressed Girish asked me to accept a gift for having tuned favourite songs. But I only wanted a promise from him that he would not drink alcohol. But he didn’t keep his word.’’ For the memory of Girish, he requested to sing the song `Attirambile Kombile...’’ in the film `Kaala Pani’. M.G. Srekumar and Chitra sung the song and the hours long programme began.
Several songs were rendered as flowers of love. Among those were ‘Amma mazhakarinu…’ (Yesudas), ‘Kannu nattu…’ (Jayachadran), ‘Deena dayalo…’ (Gayatri), ‘Kanakamunthirikal…’ (Venugopal), ‘Thamara kurivkku…’ (Manjari)., ‘Ethrayo janmamayi…’ (Sreenivas and Sujatha), ‘Aarorol pular mazhayil…’ (Vijay and Rimy Tomy) ‘Karimizhi kuruviye…’ (Devanad and Sujatha) and ‘Yamuna veruthe…’ (Swetha).
A song written by Kaithapram and composed by Thej Mervin as a tribute to Gireesh was sung by Sudheep Kumar.
Director Ranjit, who had conceptualised and coordinated the show said that it was a huge success that they could meet their target of Rs. 50 lakhs, an amount to be presented to Gireesh's family.
