Here's why Marathi music lovers go crazy over Malayali singers' latest duet 

When debutant director Padmaraj Rajgopal Nair contacted young music composer Viswajith CT for a Marathi movie, he had no inkling that he would be part of a 'historic' venture.
Having tasted success in his debut Marathi picture 'Preetam' in 2021, the multiple-award-winning composer was confident in getting a leading singer to lend voice to his songs. But, as it often happens in films, fate had a surprise in store for him.

"In 2019, I had created many jingles for ad films created by Sijo Rocky. That paved the way to my first Marathi movie ', Preetam'," Viswajith told Onmanorama. Though he sang the tracks for a song, his Marathi diction let him down, and Abhay Jodhpurkar sang the hit 'kona maga bhir bhirta hey mana pakhru'. (Shankar Mahadevan sang another song 'tuzya rupacha chandana').

"That was hardly a surprise, as I don't know a word of Marathi. Forget Marathi; I only possess a rudimentary knowledge of Hindi," Viswajith said.

But the success of 'kona mage' and his background score gave him his second outing in the Marathi film world. "Padmaraj is a Malayali born and brought up in Maharashtra. He wanted a Malayali crew when he decided to make 'Majhi Prarthana'. Preetam's lead actor, Pranav Raorane, gave him my number, and he contacted me. 'Cold Case' director Tanu Balak was brought in as the DoP."

Initially, Viswajith fixed Hariharan as the male voice. "I sent him the track and spoke about the composition. But the director and his team insisted I sing the male parts."

And the female singer? "Oh, Padmaraj had only one choice, Chitra chechi (KS Chitra). So I did't have to look for another voice."

That call meant that two Malayalis combined to produce melodious Marathi songs for the first time. This was also Chitra's first film song in Marathi and Viswajith's first as a singer.

And it did get Maharashtrians drooling over the songs. 'Tujhya Premachi Saath Milta' by Chitra has over 5 million views in a month; the duet between Viswajith and Chitra 'Me jagtoy karan' has over 9 lakh views in three days of its release on YouTube. 

"Trust me she is 60+ her range her voice her Marathi pronunciation ❤ how to believe she doesn’t know Marathi," was one comment. Another wrote: "Chitra ji brings the lyrics to life in the most beautiful way."

"You know a singer is legendary when the first line gives you goosebumps. Viswajith CT is that singer," commented one about Viswajith's voice and diction.

"Credit to the diction goes completely to director and his team who came to my studio at Vyttila and sat with me as we recorded each song. They corrected my diction in every step."

"They replicated the same effort with Chitra chechi. Being the professional, she took notes and sang till she nailed the diction," Viswajith said. "No wonder she is the role model for all of us."

The 42-year-old composer, who has many Malayalam films (Veeralippattu, Fukri, Captain, and Rudra Simhasanam, among others) and TV serials under his belt, hoped the unreleased song from the movie will also be a huge hit.
Majhi Prarthana will be released in theatres on May 9.