Q:In the film ‘Adimaipenn’, the song ‘Amma endraal anbhu …’, sung by Jayalalithaa has been retained, but, initially the song was sung by T. M. Soundarrajan and had been recorded also. Why did you change the singer? (When I put this question, Mahadevan was surprised how I got the information. I told him that MGR’s adopted daughter’s husband Vijayan played the original song to me.)
A: Initially, we recorded the song with Soundarrajan’s voice. MGR told me that according to the scene, MGR would be in a situation where he couldn’t talk. So, it would look very odd if he was shown singing. And, MGR suggested that Jayalalithaa could sing and the scene conceived accordingly. And, in the same film, TMS was given the song ‘Thaayillaamal naanillai …’ which became a super hit. Vijayan had handed over the audiotape of the TMS version to director Guhanathan and had told him that he could use the song for one of his films.