Met the music composer as per Mammootty's instruction; what happened after that defied our expectations

'Soorya Manasam' is a superhit Malayalam movie starring Mammootty and directed by Viji Thampi. Mammootty played the role of Putturumees, a mentally challenged man, in the film. The film's screenplay was written by Sab John. The screenplay of the film was developed from an English short story. The film revolves around Putturumees and his mother Mariya who face several social issues in their village. The songs in the film are evergreen hits.

Prominent South Indian music composer Keeravani was the music director of the film. In a recent interview, Viji Thampi said that he approached Keeravani to compose the songs for his film as per Mammootty's instruction.

Viji Thampi's words
"Writer Sab John and I went to Ootty to see Mammooka to discuss the shooting of 'Soorya Manasam'. Mammookka was at the location of 'Neelagiri' directed by IV Sasi. As we were talking about the film, Mammookka asked who was composing the songs for the film. When we told him that we had not yet fixed a music composer, he asked us to listen to the songs of 'Neelagiri'. We really liked the songs. The songs were composed by a youngster. He was the one who composed the songs of Mammookka's Tamil film 'Azhagan' as well.

His name was Keeravani. He is known as Maragathamani in Tamil. Thus we decided to go to Madras and meet Maragathamani. We also took lyricist Kaithapram along with us. Keeravani's recording studio was in AVM. He was an energetic youngster. He sat down to listen to the story after lighting the lamps and performing a prayer. Sab narrated the story. We also explained the situations of all three songs.

After hearing everything, Keeravani asked for one week time. Thus, we decided to stay in Madras to finish some work regarding the film. After a week, we went to Keeravani's studio. We were shocked to find that Keeravani had composed 25 Pallavis for the song 'Soorya Manasam..' All of them were so good that we felt confused about which one to choose. We then asked Keeravani to select the Pallavi he liked the most. That is how the evergreen song 'Tharalitharaavil Mayangiyo Soorya Maanasam' was born.