Kannada lyricist Jayanth Kaikini

Award-winning kannada lyricist Jayanth Kaikini’s fame has brought him many things in life, including unsolicited calls. And the genial songwriter finds many of these calls rib-tickling.

“The ones who call late evenings are those who are drunk. Their conversations are amusing. They usually ask me ‘How did you come to know of my story,’ ‘You have written about my life,’ ‘You have driven a knife through my heart,’ they say,” recalls kannada lyricist Jayanth. Then there are some the writer tries very hard to avoid. “There are those who recite their own poems and don’t stop. They do not want anything but praise. One such person is the one whose number is saved in my mobile under the name ‘idiot poet.’ Then there are others who I try to avoid. But they keep calling from other numbers till I answer. The phone book in my mobile has a long list of such numbers.” And Jayanth has stored these numbers under the names fan 1, fan 2 and so on. Will soon publish list of all kannada songs written by jayant kaikini.

After four years as a kannada film lyricist, Jayanth is ready with a book of his songs. “I have written 120 film songs. Of these 20 are from films that are yet to be released. So people may not have heard of these songs. I may use some of the ideas in these lyrics in future, which is why I don’t want these to be published in this book. So the compilation will have only 100 songs,” he says. In about a month, four other books of Jayanth’s will also be released.

Jayanth won the Filmfare award for the best kannada lyrics for Yello Maleyagide Yendu (Manasare) this year. This is his second Filmfare award.