Dum Dum Dum Love Theme

This piece is from “Dum Dum Dum”. Composer – Karthik Raja. I like watching “Dum Dum Dum” (though Madhavan and Jyothika speaking Nellai Tamil was very hard to digest initially) anytime. The sound track of “Dum Dum Dum” is one of Karthik Raja’s best and so is the background score. The theme I posted for quizzing is the main love theme of the movie.

Strangely the theme is first heard not when Aadhi and Ganga fall in love but when Aadhi tells Ganga about falling in love. I like the way Karthik Raja cuts the beautifully developing melody to create a mild anticipation in between and resumes it when Ganga teases Aadhi for the way he was blabbering.




After all the marriage stopping plan fails, the evening before Marriage, Aadhi and Ganga meet and talk about their failed mission. Karthik Raja so subtly and gently introduces the love theme sung when Aadhi says ‘Naama rendu perukkum kalyaanam nadakkathaan poghudho’.




Aadhi and Ganga come to terms with what is going to happen and they start liking each other as they speak. A soft female vocal continues to sing the theme from behind as they continue to speak. The beauty here is that it is so softly and lightly mixed, that we may not even realize that music is playing in the background but for sure we get the intended feel.




The love theme appears in its complete and loudest form just before the intermission when Aadhi and Ganga are parted by their respective fathers. It is for this music bit I bought the original DVD but it got truncated as most part of the theme music plays on the ‘intermission’ card. The very first time I saw the movie in a cinema hall, I got goose bumps by this music cue in this scene and later on multiple viewing I discovered that this theme has been used much before in the movie.




Aadhi goes back to Chennai and Ganga is also in Chennai now to purse her higher studies. In a traffic signal Ganga spots Aadhi and they stare at each other for a while in complete surprise and lot of hesitation. But Karthik Raja doesn’t use the love theme here again; instead he introduces a new theme on harmonica which is yet another motif that is going to be used later in the movie.




But the love theme comes back soon when Aadhi and Ganga accidentally see each other in a cinema hall and we come to know that they indeed are in love with each other. Aadhi instead of watching the movie keeps looking at Ganga and the theme plays out beautifully answering all our doubts.




Then a much lengthier and rich orchestral version of the love theme appears when Aadhi and Ganga have some mundane conversation as they walk on road. The theme beautifully implodes and spreads romantic waves on air in this scene.




In the climax when they finally unite near the mount road signal, I was expecting the love theme to come back with bang but Karthik Raja just hints the theme for a brief moment (but aptly for those same lines he said to Ganga in the beginning about falling in love, the scene in which the theme appeared first) and moves on to the melodies of the songs from the movie.