Vaak Issue 05

CONTENTS 01

The Kalyani Daughters Donnovan Roebert

11

The Musical Legacy of Ramnad Krishnan RK Ramanathan

27

Keshav & His Music Samanth Subramanian

33

Shyamala Mohanraj: Her Art & Values NC Srinivasaraghavan

43

The Genius of Karaikurichi Arunachalam MV Swaroop

51

Farewell Keshav!

Sriram Venkatakrishnan

57

Karaikurichi Arunachalam: A Short Profile Shailesh Ramamurthy & Lalitharam

65

Vaak Recommends MD Ramanathan Shreyas Kuchibhotla & Ananthakrishna Panugunti

Above: A brass bhuta mask Cover page: Narasimha, Vishnu’s Man-Lion Ava

k of a boar, Christies, 2013 atar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Bhuta /Bhuta/

noun Bhutas are celestial or ancestral spirits that are represented by hundreds of different forms, including forms of Shiva, buffalos and boars.

February greetings!

Discussing Margazhi at the beginning of every year is quite cliché but the month means so much to us. We had an eventful Margazhi and we were quite thrilled to listen to concerts and watch performances. Chennai’s annual music and dance festival went global suddenly what with sabhas accommodating requirements of digital streaming platforms and artists acclimatising to a new way of presenting their art. It will be interesting to observe if we sustain this innovation that (in 2021) was borne out of necessity than out of genuine intent.

Margazhi is also a month that reminds us to step back and take stock of the year that went by. This month was like that rest breath between our yogic postures, a reflection so essential to how we elegantly craft our present without clinging on to the past and without anxiously imagining the future. We are grateful we were able to publish a few issues of Vaak last year and we hope you enjoyed reading our collections. We can’t promise what 2022 will look like for Vaak, but our intent to support good scholarship remains intact. Some people have been instrumental in helping us bring this issue out: Vinay Jain has been generous with his time, wisdom, and patience. A lot of our design choices and aesthetic presentations are by-products of our interactions with him. We are grateful. Many thanks to Pranesh Prakash and Neela Bhaskar for helping us copy edit a few pieces.

All good associations begin to end and that is the nature of relationships. We felt this very much with the sudden passing of our friend Keshav Desiraju in September 2021. Keshav was magnanimous. He was several decades older to us, but he referred to us as his friends. In him, we saw a well-wisher who, after the release of every edition of the magazine, sent us short, honest comments about the pieces we published. He wrote long emails to us; he shared playlists and sharp, instructive observations ranging from poignant notes in a Javali to the state of affairs in the universe of South Indian arts. There was a childlike curiosity in him that was endearing. “EPIC” was a wonderous word in his lexicon. We received a few “EPICs” from him every time he was pleased with our work or why, even with himself, when he told us that he was learning to read and write in Telugu as preparatory coursework to write his next book on Tygaraja. Keshav had it in him to analyse manodharmas and make accurate assessments about the calibre of a musician as if he possessed what Patanjali in the Yoga Sutra calls as an Ekagra (one-pointed) mind. To be his friend meant to learn from him about music, about friendship and about kindness. Keshav Desiraju was very special to so many people and in this edition of Vaak, we are grateful to carry tributes by V.Sriram and Samanth Subramanian.

Some of us will miss him very much indeed.

Wishing you the best, Shreeraam Shankar

Vaak.

Archana .

Sivasubramanian

CONTRIBUTORS Donnovan Roebert

Samanth Subramanian

RK Ramanathan

. . .

NC Srinivasaraghavan

MN Swaroop

. .

Sriram Venkatakrishnan

Lalitharam Ananthakrishna Panugunti

Shailesh Ramamurthy

. .

Shreyas Kuchibhotla

The Kalyani Daughters Memories from the Madras Music Academy

Donovan Roebert

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T

he photograph of the Kalyani daughters, Rajalakshmi and Jeevaratnam, which was produced sometime between 1931 and 1933, is as well-known as it is usually

unaccompanied by any documented insights into the lives and art of these sisters. The present brief article is an attempt to present some items of information that may help to bring into sharper focus their place as artists and individual personalities in the forced evolution of Bharata Natyam from the 1930s onwards.

Biographical details for the sisters are sparse. They were the daughters of the famous Dasi Attam dancer Kalyani Ammal from Tiruvalaputtur, who was a ritual and secular dancer attached to the Ratnigiriswaran temple, where she also lived. It is said that she became the second spouse of Meenakshisundaram Pillai, and that Jeevaratnam was born of their union.

I have not been able to find birth dates for either of the sisters, and there are no exact indications as to their ages when they performed for the Madras Music Academy (MMA) in 1931, and again in 1933.

The dates of the two performances are very interesting because they are both closely connected to seminal events which occurred in the dance economy in those years. The Kalyani daughters first performed for the MMA on 15 March, 1931, just a few months after Dr Muthulakshmi Reddi had successfully introduced the first formulation of her Anti-Devadasi (Prevention of Dedication) Bill in the Madras Legislative Council. The appearance of Rajalakshmi and Jeevaratnam on a public proscenium stage in the near aftermath of Reddi's first real legislative success must have been very irksome to her, and is said to have caused her much chagrin. It must therefore have taken real courage on the part of the sisters to have braved the stage at all. So anxiety-ridden, indeed, was the whole affair that many stayed away from that performance for fear of incurring public censure.

The sisters performed again under the auspices of the MMA on 1 January, 1933. This must have been an even more nervous occasion for the two girls because this performance took place only some weeks after the public spat between Dr Reddi and E Krishna Iyer, in which Iyer had accused Reddi of using a sledgehammer instead of a razor in dealing with the delicate question of the devadasis and their dance. In fact, they were dancing just three days after the MMA had taken a unanimous decision, on 28 December, 1932, to go directly against Reddi's agenda by promoting the dance as a secular art.

Above: Tiruvalaputtur Kalyani Ammal, credits: Davesh Soneji Cover picture: View of black [George] town, Madras, © The British Library Board

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At this early period in the public resuscitation of the dance, the MMA was still of the opinion - as a pragmatic point of strategy - that one way forward for the soon-to-be-outlawed devadasis was to enable then to earn a living by public performances of their art.

Two of the speakers, Dr Srinavasa Raghava Ayyangar and Dr S Krishnaswami Ayyanger, spoke respectively as follows:

The immediate task of art lovers should be to encourage the fine arts particularly among the reclaimed members of the Devadasi class, especially as their heredity in the art will be valuable.

We should also support those who are interested in reclaiming the class by legislation and otherwise. The Devadasis might be induced to have regular married life and make an honourable living by the art.

And:

If you do not propose to give the present practitioners of this art an opportunity of attempting to make an earnest [probably ‘honest’] living, surely it would not be possible for them to retrace their steps without your help … I take it that the view of the majority assembled here is that we cannot begin under better auspices than by helping them towards this improvement.

Muthulakshmi Reddi

But this notion was by no means assured either of immediate acceptability or of eventual success because it did not - at least at that early stage - concur with the far more radical

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intentions envisaged for the devadasis by Dr Reddi and the complex arrangement of social, political, and cultural reform instances which supported her. In the view of these groups, the very idea of dance was so closely intertwined with the devadasi system that the art itself could no longer be countenanced in India, and should be banned not only from public but also from private venues.

We get some idea of the difficulty of practising dance in this recollection by Rukmini Devi Arundale, speaking in 1971:

Among the great dancers whom I have known, Gowri Amma was the first one whom I met. It was after seeing Meenakshisundaram Pillai's two disciples, Jeevaratnam and Rajalakshmi dance, that I decided to learn this art. I searched everywhere for a teacher, but as often happens, one searches everywhere except nearest to oneself. Many teachers were suggested to me, but I went to meet Gowri Amma in the home where she lived in Mylapore. My first lesson started with her as my teacher with the sabdam 'Sarasijakshulu'. After that I arranged for her to come to Adyar to my home to teach me. I was learning secretly at that time because a large number of people in the country were against the dance ...

This statement of the reputational dangers of learning dance is confirmed by Dr M Madeswaran who writes that Dr Reddi met with Rukmini Devi's mother, Seshammal, to persuade her to stop her daughter from dancing. It is easy to imagine, then, the kind of pressure that must have been brought to bear on Kalyani

Mylapore Gowri Ammal during an abhinaya demonstration

The Kalyani Daughters: Rajalakshmi & Jeevaratnam

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Ammal, on Meenakshisundaram Pillai, the sisters' teacher, and on the girls themselves to prevent their performing in public.

None of this in mentioned by E Krishna Iyer, writing about the Kalyani daughters in 1933:

A combination of appreciable abhinaya and considerable foot work in adavujathis mark the art of the Kalyani daughters of Thiruvalaputhur. The daughters of a

Rukmini Devi with her mother: Seshammal

mother who was herself a noted artist, they had their training under Meenakshisundram of Pandanallur who has a hoary family tradition of greatness in this art and is by himself a man of great talents.

They dance together and their performance is ordinarily called a double dance ... The simultaneous rendering of abhinaya and adavujathis by two persons together adds novelty and vivacity to the art though small but inevitable differences in personal characteristics may sometimes lead to a distraction of comparisons and contrasts. The two artists Rajalakshmi and Jeevaratnam are still in their youth and are nimble of feet; and the abhinaya is noteworthy particularly in the

E Krishna Iyer

younger one. Of slender frame and dark brown complexion her lithe, graceful figure with ever smiling face, large eyes and expressive features mark out conspicuously the younger sister, Jeevaratnam; and her art arrests the attention of the audience from the outset.

The stock of the two sisters may not be considerable or varied; but they try to be elaborate in what they know, especially in the pada varna. They invariably display much of variegated adavujathis in scintillating cascades and they are vivacious in effect, though at times they are carried to excess.

Pandanallur Meenakshisundaram Pillai

Iyer adds the sad footnote:

Since writing the above article originally in the 'Indian Express', the tragic news of the untimely death of Miss Jeevaratnam the younger of the two Kalyani daughters by smallpox in June '33 came to be known. It is a great pity that the cruel hand of death should have snatched away such a talented artist still in the bloom of youth and with a great future and the art of dancing is the poorer for her loss.

The tone of encouraging appreciation and of pathos in these two extracts is oddly belied by Iyer's introduction to his brief section on dance in Personalities in Present Day Music (1933) in which these passages occur. In the introduction itself he notes that:

By this time even purists and prudes would have been convinced of the intrinsic beauty of the art, however much it may suffer by the medium by which it is represented ...

This negative allusion to the hereditary dancing class was already present in the 1932 public controversy with Reddi, in which Iyer had contended that:

… Dr Muthulakshmi Reddi would apply a sledge-hammer and see both a class of persons and their Art go lock, stock and barrel, after which alone – according to her – respectable ladies would think of touching the Art … For my part it is no question of Art at the expense of morality, or even positive encouragement of the present day nautch girls as a class and never a justification for the perpetuation of the Devadasi class as such. The heavens would not fall and morality would in no way be jeopardised if one or two cases of very good Art is reluctantly tolerated in exceptional instances – without the associated vice – as a matter of temporary evil necessity, pending the coming up of better persons.

And:

The fact of the matter is that the muses have to thrive somewhere. They could not and would not

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die. Nor can they thrive merely on the hopes and pious wishes of the reformers of the destructive type.

They cannot breathe or live in a vacuum between the total abolition of the Devadasi class and the doubtful coming up of respectable ladies to take to them … The legacy of the art of Bharatanatyam is too precious a treasure to be destroyed or dimmed by the confusion of purpose and methods of overenthusiastic reformers with no proper perspective of Indian life and its amenities.

Within a mere three years of these allusions to 'better persons' and 'the doubtful coming up of respectable ladies to take to them', Rukmini Devi would present her first performance for a select audience in the gardens of the Theosophical Society, no doubt without the general approval of the Society as a whole. As she recalled:

On the whole, I felt I had managed to convert the orthodox Madras crowd to my point of view. But it was not easy to win over some of the members of Theosophical society. Many who did not understand felt it was not at all the proper thing for the wife of the president to dance even though he supported and encouraged me ...

Rukmini Devi Arundel

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With the untimely death of Jeevaratnam, her sister Rajalakshmi seems to have withdrawn from public performances for the Music Academy. It is possible that she danced at least once with another 'star' among the young hereditary dancers, Varalakshmi, in the 1930s - but I am unable to confirm this.

The photograph of the Kalyani daughters occurs as a plate in Iyer's Personalities in Present Day Music, where it is attributed to Rao Saheb P Ramachandra Chetty, about whom I have been able to find no further information. Apart from the visual insight it gives us into the characters of the rather nervous-looking young dancing sisters, it is valuable for documenting the Sadir costume of the period and the general 'look' of the dancers as they would have been seen on the stage by the few persons brave enough to attend their performances.

My hope in having written this brief article is that Rajalakshmi and Jeevaratnam will now come more alive to readers, not only as the best of what had survived of the hereditary dance economy after decades of sustained attacks on its members by reformists and social purists, but as two courageous young girls who stand permanently as markers for the dogged survival of the art through the coming decades of hardship for their community in the period of the thriving of the 'better persons' and 'respectable ladies' who would take the art forward in a rather different way.

DISCOGRAPHY Aspects of Pictorial Indian Dance History | Blog Donnovan’s academic papers on dance | Academia.edu Donnovan Roebert | Facebook

Donovan Roebert is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction. He has been engaged for some years in research into the textual and pictorial aspects of Indian dance history. His book, 'Essays on Classical Indian Dance' was published in 2021. His latest work on textual research will be published this year under the title, 'Western Texts on Indian Dance: An Illustrated Guide from 1298 to 1930'. He has also written two published novels based on the grammar of Odissi and Next page: View of black [George] town, Madras, © The British Library Board

Bharata Natyam. These are 'The Odissi Girl' and 'The Rose Girl of Dharamkot'. His ongoing research findings can be viewed at his blog, 'Aspects of Pictorial Indian Dance History.'

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The Musical Legacy of Ramnad Krishnan A conversation with RK Ramanathan

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R

amnad Krishnan (1918-1973) was called the musician of musicians. Influenced by Veena Dhanammal & GN Balasubramaniam, he pioneered a new way of singing

Carnatic music that eventually became the Ramnad Krishnan bani. Words can only do so much, one needed to experience his music to understand the language of what he was conveying to his audience.

We spoke to his son RK Ramanathan to find out more about this person whose music we love so much and whose life we know so little about: RK Ramanathan graduated from New College, Madras. He started his career as a medical representative and later founded a company called American Remedies. He now resides in Kottivakam, Madras.

____________ Vaak: We do not know much about Ramnad Krishnan’s early life.

Ramanathan: Yes, that is because he came from a very simple background. My father was born in 1918 in Alappuzha to Vaidhyanathan and Brihannayaki, and the family shifted to Ramanathapuram when he was 3 months old. He had five siblings. His elder brother was V Lakshminarayanan whose children, L Vaidhyanathan, L Shankar, L Subramaniam are popular musicians today. The other siblings were Ramnad V Easwaran, Ramnad V Raghavan and Ramnad Subramaniam. While Easwaran and Raghavan were mridangam players, Subramaniam never took up music as his profession although he was well versed in the theory and practice of Carnatic music. Raghavan also taught at Weslyan University for a long time and along with VV Sundaram, he started the Cleveland Aradhana Festival.

Vaak: Who did Ramnad Krishnan learn from?

Ramanathan: My grandfather migrated to Ramnad in search of a job. My father and his siblings were sent to learn under Madurai Sankarasivam, who was then in Ramanathapuram. One of his classmates was the well renowned Mridangist Ramanathapuram CS Murugabhoopathi. What is amusing to me is that while Murugabhoopathi prefixed Ramanathapuram to his name, his own brother Sankarasivam chose to call himself Madurai Sankarasivam.

Cover: Ramnad Krishnan in USA Ramnad Krishnan in an AIR concert accompanied by his brother Ramnad Eashwaran on the Mridangam

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Vaak: He was greatly influenced by GN Balasubramaniam (GNB) and Veena Dhanammal…

Ramanathan: In 1936, he shifted to Madras to pursue a career in music. He was an ardent fan of GNB and attended all GNB’s concerts. After seeing Krishnan in many of his concerts, GNB and Krishnan became good friends. He really admired and enjoyed the speed in GNB’s music.

Mottu Krishnaswamy Iyengar, a direct disciple of Kanchipuram Naina Pillai, and Raghava Rao were close friends of my father’s. Once in 1937 they asked my father if he had heard Dhanammal’s music and when my father said no, they took him to Dhanammal’s famous Friday salons. For the first two weeks, my father did not like that music because he did not understand the style. But on the third Friday, something changed in him. He understood the aesthetics of her music and he became a huge fan of Dhanammal. High quality art is not grasped at first sight, one must give time for it to sink in. Listening to Dhanammal’s music was a defining experience in his life. Through Brinda and Muktha he was keen on learning all the pieces in the Dhanammal school, especially the Padams & Javalis, and kritis by Subbaraya Sastry and Muthuswamy Dikshitar.

Vaak: Could you tell us more about your family?

Ramnad Krishnan with GN Balasubramaniam

Ramanathan: In 1940 he married Mangalam, daughter of Umayalpuram Kodandarama

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Iyer. He was a highly respected Mridangam artist and started playing the Ghatam in his later years. Umayalpuram Kodandarama Iyer’s granduncle was Umayalpuram Swaminatha Iyer, a direct disciple of Tyagaraja.

My father was a very nice man. If someone came to him to learn music and if he did not see any future for her in vocal music, he was honest enough to request for that person to learn Violin. He would have made a lot of money if he had agreed to teach them, but he never compromised. He was an amazing Mridangam player, and this is not something many know about him. I learnt Mridangam under my father’s guidance. He was also very confident about his music. He set very high standards for himself. As a father, he never insisted that we learn music, but he expected us to be perfect in whatever we did.

Vaak: Did he have a daily routine? When did he practice music?

Ramanathan: My father used to wake up at 4:30 am and would usually practice music till 8:00 am. His practice routine would include sarali varisai, akkarams, etc. The secret of his music lay in his repetitions, he practiced the same thing again and again.

Vaak: His laya knowledge was immense.

Ramanathan: That’s correct. His teacher Sankarasivam was known for his expertise in

Ramnad Krishnan with his wife Mangalam

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laya. In those days when great laya vidhwans like Pudukottai Dakshinamurthy Pillai, Manpundia Pillai, etc. visited Sankarasivam, they would stay for three or four days. During their practice sessions they would sing Thirupugazhs in complicated thalas. Sankarasivam would call out for Ramnad Krishnan to maintain tala as they sang. His natural inclination towards laya should be credited to his initial training under Sankarasivam. In fact, T Brinda used to say that my father never needed to demonstrate tala even for a Sankeernam Pallavi.

Vaak: Was he religious?

Ramanathan: He wasn’t particularly religious in the proverbial sense of the term. Even though he did not practice everyday rituals, he was a very Godfearing man. Music was his path to the divine.

Once when we visited the temple in Rameshwaram, my father was moved by the Goddess Parvatavardini and he immediately started singing Sankari Samkuru (Saveri). He saw God in the form of swaras, he treated every musical note as an angel. When there was a pooja at home my father sang. If it was a Saraswati pooja, he would sing Sri Saraswati Namostute in Arabhi.

Vaak: How was he in school?

Ramnad Krishnan in USA, late 1960s

Ramanathan: He studied in Ramanad Raja High School. I am told that he was very good in

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Mathematics. He used to participate in school dramas and sang songs from the Ramanatakam. I think he also used to play football. He was ambidextrous in the sense that he would not have a weak foot in football. He never concentrated on his school curriculum much. For him music was everything. He had a great memory, and it must have been easy to pass exams with that kind of a mind.

Vaak: Could we say that his financial stability and popularity was all because of his music?

Ramanathan: Very much so! When he came to Madras, he did not have any money. He made his living by teaching. He also taught many famous celebrities of those times. Some of his students include TV Ratnam, Usha Sagar, dancer Sarasa, Kamala Lakshmanan & her sisters: Radha and Vasanthi.

Vaak: Could you talk about his relationship with GN Balasubramaniam?

Ramanathan: They were very good friends. Interestingly, some of GNB’s fans became close to Ramnad Krishnan, and they stayed in touch for a long time. GNB respected my father’s music. My father sang a Ragam Thanam Pallavi (RTP) for All India Radio (AIR), Madras when GNB was its director. The very next week he received a contract from AIR to sing an RTP concert, but he ignored it. GNB came home the next morning and asked my father his reasons for turning down AIR’s offer. My father asked GNB, “Is RTP the only thing I can sing for AIR?”, for which GNB replied, “Krishna, don’t be silly. We just got hold

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of some good quality tapes from Holland. I want you to sing an RTP and archive it so that future generations can learn from them” Vaak: Was he close to any other musician apart from GNB?

Ramanathan: All musicians were friendly with my father. He was very proud of the young audience in his concerts. Many young musicians including Ramani, PS Narayanaswamy, NM Narayanan, Umayalpuram K Sivaraman, Vellore Ramabadhran, etc. were close friends and they spent a lot of time with my father at home.

In 1957, when Chowdiah was conferred with the Sangeetha

Kalanidhi

by

the

Madras

Music

Academy, my father performed in the annual conference. He presented a Khanda Nadai Pallavi as part of that concert. A well-informed member in the audience requested him to present Sankeeram on the spot. My father obliged and requested him to maintain tala while he sang sankeernam. After the performance, Chowdiah walked up to the stage and said, “I’m not sure if all of you understood what just happened, but I witnessed brilliance on stage”. He also mentioned that he hoped for the Music Academy to give Krishnan a slot during the prime time and in 1958, the Academy requested Chowdiah to accompany Krishnan. The concert was a big hit, and many magazines including Bhavan’s General & Shankar’s Weekly published a piece about this concert. The article was titled: ‘Ramnad Krishnan comes to the limelight with the Mumurutlu in Atana and never looks back’.

Another close friend and ardent admirer of Krishnan’s music was S Balachander (SB). After my father’s passing, SB gave us a portrait of my father with a quote saying, “On behalf of the community of tearful musicians and rasikas ….

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yet….in ecstatic-blissful-cheerful homage to one of the greatest musicians ever who gave us all the purest of eternal joy”.

Lalgudi Jayaraman was a great friend. When I once visited him many years after my father’s death he said, “When you focus on the mathematical aspects of your singing, you will usually compromise on quality, but Krishnan’s case was different. He displayed both these streams of musical knowledge with ease. What is sad is that he died at a very young age for us to enjoy his music”.

Two decades after my father’s death, Rajan (the musician Ritha Rajan’s husband) told me that he had attended a lecture demonstration on sarvalagu swaras by Lalgudi Jayaraman.

Lalgudi played Amma Ravamma in Kalyani sung by my father and noted that Krishnan specialised in rendering sarvalagu swaras. In Amma Ravamma, the swaras appear to be very intricate but if you notice clearly, they are simple patterns flowing beautifully as notes.

Lalgudi also fondly remembered how Krishnan called him as Jalgudi Layaraman.

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Vaak: In the early 20th century it was not common for men to accompany woman musicians. Did Krishnan have any opinion on this?

Ramanathan: This year marks the 50th year since Krishnan gave his last concert (1971). The mentality was completely different at that time. There was caste and gender discrimination, but my father never harbored such differences. In fact, most of his students were woman musicians – Ritha Rajan, Vegavahini Vijayaraghavan, Nagamani Srinath, Nirmala Sundarrajam, Janaki Sundarrajam, Usha Sagar, Kumari Kamala, Sarasa, TV Rathnam etc. His interactions with other musicians were never based on their caste or gender.

Vaak: Apart from Pallavis, what else was he popular for?

Ramanathan: His renditions of Padams and Javalis were a delight to listen to. Ritha Rajan, his student, has mentioned that he only sang a handful of Padams and Javalis on stage. Some of the Padams that we don’t have a record of him singing on stage include Yala Padare (

Ramnad Krishnan with his students in Adayar music college

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(Begada), Pattakura Na Kongu (Ananda bhariavi), Mora Topu (Sahana), Kontegadu (Surutti), & Tarumaru (Nattaikurinji).

From Geethams to Padams, he made sure to learn everything in a raga. He interpreted the raga from the Padams and that is evident in his alapana singing. Anything he did was raga based. He inspired a lot of manodharma from these Padams.

He was fondly known as Begada Krishnan and later as Sahana Krishnan. He also popularized many scales like Phalamanjari & Purnasadjam. He expanded the scale and gave life to it with his knowledge of other phrase-based ragas.

Spencer Venugopal recalls my father singing a Padam in Anandabhairavi: Pattakura Na Kongu. Venugopal says, “It was such a beautiful rendition of a Padam, which is like a veritable tower of jasmines”. Krishnan later mentioned that he learnt it from his disciple Ritha Rajan. This illustrates Krishnan’s total dedication the musical’s aesthetic value irrespective of the sources from which he received them from.

Vaak: Did he always sing crisp alapanas for his kritis?

Ramanathan: Krishnan gave a concert at the Karpagambal temple (Mylapore) in the late 1960s. He wanted to end the concert by singing a Javali, Charumathi Upacharamu (Kanada). He sang a beautiful seven-minute alapana in Kanada. This is very unusual Next page: 1.Ramnad Krishnan in Mylapore vidwat samajam taken around 1962. Also seen are Maharajapuram Viswanathan Iyer, Musiri Subramania Iyer, TT Krishnamachary (near Musiri), Maruthuvakudi Rajagopalan (Musicologist).

2.Ramnad Krishnan during a concert with T Viswanathan on the flute and John B Higgins on the Tampura

considering the alapana was for a Javali. The Javali consisted of unique phrases inspired by the Ata Tala Varnam, Nera Namiti (Kanada).

Vaak: What was his association with T Brinda and family?

Ramanathan: They respected each other’s music. T Brinda was eager on sending her daughter Vegavahini to learn from Ramnad Krishnan. Krishnan thought this as an honor and immediately agreed to teach her. B Balasubramaniam visited Brinda when she was in the hospital after a single raga (Keeravani) concert in the Music Academy.

She was puzzled to see him in his concert attire and asked him where he was coming from. She heard his reply and went into a trance. After a while, she said that if one wanted to hear good Keeravani, one should listen to “Iyer (Krishnan) sing it”.

A dancer named Padmalochani Nagarajan learnt from Brinda and my father. When her marriage was fixed, Krishnan was invited to sing for her wedding. During that concert, T Viswanathan requested Ramnad Krishnan to sing Sri Manini in Purnasadjam.

After the concert, my father said “You won’t understand now, but if someone from that family has requested for Sri Manini, it means I have been singing this composition well”.

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1

2

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Ramnad Krishnan during Aruna Sairam’s wedding. L-R: Rajammal (Aruna’s mother), Mangalam (RK’s wife), T Muktha, Alamelu Mani, Aruna Sairam, Hari Haran, Ramnad Krishnan, Chandramouli (Mridangist), Sethuraman (Aruna’s father), KJ Natrajan.

Radio was a major source of income back in those days. Brinda once suggested that my father sing Shyama Sastri’s Swarajathi in Bhairavi for a radio concert and offered to teach the composition. Both had forgotten about this until the previous day of the live broadcast.

Krishnan asked Brinda to sing it and he notated the full Swarajathi in her brother’s cigarette packet cover. The following day sang the Swarajathi at the concert perfectly and Brinda was very pleased.

Vaak: What was his association with Papanasam Sivan?

Ramanathan: He had a great respect for Papanasam Sivan and was emotionally attached to him. My father always mentioned about how Sivan’s approach to ragas like Karaharapriya, Shanmukhapriya for the cinema industry was no way inferior to the Carnatic repertoire. He admired Sivan so much so that he started calling him ‘Living Tyagaraja’.

Once Krishnan attended a concert by Papanasam Sivan for which he sang Tyagaraja’s Ninnuvina Namadendu (Navarasakanada). The following day after that concert, Krishnan met Sivan at a musical gathering on Sivaratri. He asked if he could sing the Navarasakanada that Sivan sang the previous day. Sivan replied, “Oh leave that, since today is Sivarathri, why don’t you listen to this Navarasakanada”. He composed the popular kriti Nan Oru Vilayattu Bommaya (Navarasakanada) on the spot upon Krishnan’s request. Krishnan and the others were left awestruck. After the Navarasakanada, Sivan sang Karpagame in

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Madhyamavathi. It was during this concert that Sivan told my father, “Krishna, I want you to sing this song, I want to hear it in your voice”.

Vaak: What was his association with Wesleyan University?

Ramanathan: He was supposed to be there for two years, but he came back in three months. He reasoned that he was missing his family. Wesleyan was eager to have him, and they were willing to host my mother, but he refused the offer. He only said, “It is a challenge to teach music to those who have never been exposed to it before, but I believe I was born to sing to people who know music”.

Vaak: Did he have hobbies?

Ramanathan: He really enjoyed watching cricket. He enjoyed watching movies and was open to all genres of music. One of his favorite movies is called Graduate (1967) and he enjoyed the soundtracks in that movie. He admired Sivaji Ganesan and enjoyed watching his movies.

Vaak: Has he composed any songs?

Ramanathan: No. He believed that one must lead a saintly life to compose. He has however tuned two songs: Govardana Giridhara in Darbari Kanada & Kalaye Yashoda in

Ramnad Krishnan during John B Higgin’s wedding. R-L: T Ranganathan, Ramnad Krishnan, V Nagarajan, T Viswanathan, John B Higgins, Ria Higgins, Srinivasalu, V Thyagarajan

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Suddha Sarang. A very close raga to Suddha Sarang is Hamsanaadham and there is a recording of him singing Bantureeti in along with T Viswanathan in Wesleyan University.

Govardana Giridhara used to be sung in Hindolam, but after listening to an LP released by Amir Khan my father was inspired to retune it.

Vaak: Has he ever played the Tampura for other musicians?

Ramanathan: Yes! When I was about 15 years old, a special concert was organized to celebrate Sankarasivam’s fiftieth birthday. My father provided vocal support to Sankarasivam, and TN Seshagopalan was sitting behind him on stage. Even though Krishnan was much senior to Seshagopalan, he invited Seshagopalan to sing along with him as they were both students of Sankarasivam.

Vaak: Did he have a favorite raga?

Ramanathan: From the recordings we have It is evident that Sahana was a raga that was very dear to him. Here I would like to mention one story that Ritha Rajan recalled. Once during her class with Krishnan, she told him about Sari Evvare in Sahana and presented the composition to him as a fast, short, and simple kriti. He was very impressed with this song, and he picked it up from Ritha Rajan. He then transformed it by adding his manodharma and presented it with a lot of nuance in a much slower pace.

DISCOGRAPHY: 1959 December Season at the Music Academy, Madras Vaak Listening Session | Ramnad Krishnan | December 2021 A collection of Javalis Listen with Palghat Ramprasad | Raga Begada | Sankari Neeve | Subbaraya Sastry Raga Mohanam | Mohana Rama | Tyagaraja Raga Bhairavi | Rama Rama Pranasakhi | Kshetrayya Ragamalika | Bhavayami Raghuramam | Swati Tirunal

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Keshav & His Music Samanth Subramanian

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I

’ve been asked to write about Keshav’s relationship with music, which I consider a great privilege, because Keshav loved his music so much that he seemed to live for

it, and so to talk about Keshav and music is to talk about his life force itself, the thing that occupied his mind more hours of the day than anything else. Carnatic music in particular filled his heart. You will also doubtless have read his biography of MS Subbulakshmi, called “Of Gifted Voice,” which was published earlier this year. But there was something in the way Keshav related to this music that was very eloquent, that said so much about the kind of person he was, and even about the kind of person we could all hope to be.

I was first introduced to Keshav back in 2012, when we both lived in Delhi, by a couple of friends who knew of our shared interest in Carnatic music. I have a feeling Ram was one of them. For a couple of years, I’d been writing a short column on music in a weekend paper, and Keshav had read some of these pieces and asked for an introduction. In itself, this was remarkable. He was still working in the civil service; he had a full life, and he had friends all over the city; he didn’t particularly have to make the effort to meet new people.

Moreover, there was no question that his knowledge and appreciation of music was vastly superior to anything I or my brief columns could claim. Introducing us must have felt, to Ram, like introducing Gundappa Viswanath to a fourth-division cricketer. But it didn’t matter to Keshav; to share an enthusiasm was the most important thing. It revealed his sense of egalitarianism, and his disregard of disparities in age or experience. I’ve never met anyone else who has forged genuine, equal friendships with so many people so much younger than him.

To sit next to Keshav at a concert was a terrific experience. He wasn’t one of those constant talkers, thank heavens, and if he hummed, it was only very occasionally and very quietly. But he had a very mobile face, and he’d use it to turn to you in silent communication. The raised eyebrows in puzzlement if he heard a phrase that was off, or a song that was unexpected. The rolled eyes if a singer started pandering. The pursed-lip nod of appreciation when he heard something he admired. He knew what he liked and what he didn’t like, but this never made him dogmatic. He was open to being surprised or to being unexpectedly pleased.

This is even more extraordinary when you consider just how much he knew about music.

This was a man who recalled song lists from concerts in the 1960s, a man who, out of his own interest, meticulously created an index for the music magazine Shruti. In the lecture demonstrations that mark the mornings of the music season’s schedule every December, it was invariably the case that he knew nearly as much or more as the person delivering the lecture. Once, after we’d attended a talk by a very well-respected violinist, about a set of songs by Muthuswami Dikshitar, Keshav went right home and emailed me a journal article he’d read and digested years earlier, on aspects of these songs that the violinist hadn’t talked

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about. But this depth of knowledge never interfered with his capacity for delight, which if you think about it is a very unusual thing.

Part of the reason was that, while he seriously loved his music, he never took it—or himself—seriously. There were no holy cows, there were no ineffable sanctities. He recognised music as a human enterprise, as something that could be inspiring on one day Keshav with his sisters

and comical on the next, just as humans are. My absolute fondest memories of sitting next to

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Keshav in concerts have to do with the occasions when he did lean over to say something to me—not to share information, but to remind me of an inside joke or make a gossipy remark.

And then we would both dissolve into fits of giggles, shaking silently next to each other, while others stared at us. One day he called me, falling all over himself with laughter, just to say that he’d found out a fact that verged on the absurd: that the two young great granddaughters of MS Subbulakshmi, who often perform together, always do so with a painted effigy of MS backstage—that they take this effigy along to every concert everywhere. A little

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while later, he found a photo of the effigy and sent it along as well. That photo became a trope for us: a literal idolization of the kind that Keshav never subscribed to, and that he thought was positively injurious to the appreciation of art.

If Keshav had idolized MS, his book wouldn’t have been half as good as it is. The thing that made the book was that he was able to regard MS with both fondness and clarity. MS’ concerts over the years formed the spine of his life, so it would have been so easy for him to drown the book in nostalgia. As he was writing the book, and as we discussed the things he was finding, he’d say, in fact, that his first responsibility was to avoid that temptation to be sentimental. And the book shows how he succeeded in that—how he’s warm towards MS but aware of her failures or her missteps. Here’s an example. One of the most popular criticisms of MS was that many of her concerts sounded the same. That they were made up of some subset of a small number of songs and ragas, and that she sang these with little variation—even the alapanas, which are theoretically composed on the spot, could feel predictable. Anyone else who loved her music as much as Keshav did might have felt defensive about this. But Keshav acknowledged it, explained it, and looked beyond it: he saw it as a part of a greater picture. Which didn’t stop him, of course, from sending me emails every time he found an MS rendition of a song he’d never heard her sing. His excitement was palpable every time, as if he’d found a lost Picasso.

I consider it an honour to write about this side of Keshav, in part because I think it offers us some secrets on how to live. I’ve been reading a new book by Rebecca Solnit, titled “Orwell’s Roses,” in which she writes about George Orwell’s politics but also about his love of gardening and nature. It’s easy to think of liberals as dour scolds, she writes—easy to think, in fact, that if we are politically engaged in facing up to the world’s problems, we shouldn’t really have time for roses or music or literature. But Orwell’s love of nature, like Keshav’s love of music, complicates that easy stereotype and raises different kinds of questions. “They were questions,” and here I quote Solnit, “they were questions about who he was and who we were and where pleasure and beauty and hours with no quantifiable practical result fit into the life of someone, perhaps of anyone, who also cared about justice and truth and human rights and how to change the world.”

Samanth Subramanian is an Indian writer and journalist based in London. He studied journalism at Penn State University and international relations at Columbia University. In 2018–19, he was a Leon Levy Fellow at the City University of New York. He is also a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian and WIRED.

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Anju Dodiya’s Masking/Tusks 2020 Watercolour, charcoal and soft pastel on paper, 57 x 38 cm

Shyamala Mohanraj: Her Art & Values NC Srinivasaraghavan

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T

he year 2022 marks the 80th birth anniversary of the late Bharatanatyam dancer and guru Shyamala Mohanraj. A senior disciple of T Balasaraswati

(Bala), Shyamala lived a life dedicated to art. Born in 1941 at Jaffna, Sri Lanka, Shyamala was introduced to dance at the age of four by her father Nadaraja.

Her first guru was Subbiah Pillai. Her father once saw a performance of T Balasaraswati and decided that his daughter would learn only from her.

Arriving in Madras as a teenager of fifteen, her tutelage under Balasaraswati began.

Shyamala always described Balasaraswati as a firm but encouraging teacher. The initial lessons with Bala were a daily affair and continued until her passing in 1984. She received lessons in Nritta from K Ganesan, son of Balasaraswati’s guru Kandappa Pillai. Shyamala also learnt Kathakali from the renowned Kathakali dancer Guru Gopinath alias Perumanoor Gopinathan Pillai.

Although Shyamala started learning from Balasaraswati in the mid 1950s, she performed her Arangetram in the year 1978 when she was thirty-six years old.

She performed at an auditorium in Kanchipuram, and the event was preceded by special prayers at the Ammanakshi Amman temple, the very site of Bala’s own debut as a seven-year-old in 1925. Located close to the Kamakshi Amman temple in Kanchipuram, the Ammanakshi Amman temple was considered important by several hereditary dancing families. Oral histories recount that families once resided in the vicinity of this shrine.

Karen Elliott, a student of Balasaraswati, attended Shyamala's Arangetram. “I still remember the day when we went down to Kanchipuram with Balasaraswati and her daughter Lakshmi to watch the performance. After seeing the performance, Balamma was flying with happiness. A conversation followed in the car and Balamma announced that she intended to do everything within her means to support Shyamala’s dancing career” said Karen, who even wrote in her diary that Shyamala’s performance “was perfect and life-changing!”

Shyamala wished to be a doctor. However, on her father’s insistence she prioritized dance alongside her studies. Having completed her Masters in Science, she worked as a biology teacher at at a school in Chennai, while also practising, teaching and performing Bharatanatyam. During the 1970’s and 80’s, Shyamala taught dance to students at Balasaraswati’s Classical Bharata Natya School at the Madras Music Academy. Her colleagues were Nandini Ramani and Thirupampuram K Ramiah.

Shyamala Mohanraj during a performance at the Royal Ontario Museum — Picture Courtesy: Christopher Miles Brokenshire

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Shyamala with her student Vasugi Singh. Photograph taken for Vasugi’s arangetram in 1975 Picture Courtesy – Vasugi Singh

Continuing Bala’s legacy Bala’s grandson Aniruddha Knight owes his solid grounding in the bani to Shyamala’s service to the art form. He poignantly recalls how his mother and guru Lakshmi Knight had instructed him on her death bed to unfailingly continue his dance lessons from Shyamala.

Being the first male dancer, and the first biracial member of an artistic family of eight matriarchs, Aniruddha finds himself in a unique position. His family's art is his inheritance, and he stresses that gender has never been a barrier for accessing it. Across the ages, the performance of Bharatanatyam has witnessed a focus on rigid gender binaries. It has not been easy for Aniruddha to make his mark as a male dancer since he never changed the style of his ancestors.

Today, Aniruddha teaches the challenging bani to several eager students. He says that his teaching style is influenced by Shyamala. She was a firm but patient teacher, one who always corrected mistakes with a smile on her face. He says, “Shyamala usually never allowed taking notes or recording classes. One had to learn through repetition and refinement. Shyamala

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learnt from Bala through absorption as well – she watched other students dance and imbibed the lessons. Her nritta was exceptional!”.

Diverse students Leading a modest but culturally rich life, Shyamala took private Bharatanatyam lessons to several students who thronged her residence in Thiruvanmiyur, a residential neighbourhood in south Chennai. Apart from Chennai-based students, many Westerners learnt dance from Shyamala, and she generously shared her art with anyone who recognised its worth.

Multitasking between her day job and dance classes, Shyamala was a single mother. She raised her son Pranavan, who grew up to become a pilot. Her greatest source of strength was her mother, Eswari, who mostly lived with her.

Freedom in the Bala Bani Neela Bhaskar, one of Shyamala’s senior disciples, learnt from her for more than 15 years.

Busting the myth that traditional Banis produce artistes who are all similar, Neela compared

Shyamala with her students bottom row – Sofia Diaz, Srimati Shyamala Mohanraj, Laurissa Vibhuti middle row – Polly Banerjee, Barbara Foster, Lindsi Whitworth, Maya Charney, Amber Lupton, Jill Carnay top row – Blythe Massey, Moni Banerjee, Lisa Wigutoff Zales, Margaret Polson Picture Courtesy – Conrad Olivier

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how even a Padam like Nithiraiyil Soppanathil had distinct flavours when performed by Shyamala and others like Lakshmi. “Shyamala would approach the piece with a girlish innocence and would express the mood of a heroine who was sad that the hero (often God) played cruel jokes on her. Lakshmi Knight would perform the piece with more despondence; Lakshmi also accentuated the emotional quotient by masterfully tweaking the bhava of the music as she sang while performing! The outcome of the abhinaya was an act of manodharma. Of course, both the artistes are incomparable in their respective portrayals.”

Ranjini Menon, who took dance lessons from Shyamala at the Music Academy also feels the same. She says, “In our style, we maintain our unique soul and personality on stage. The ani gave us all a solid foundation when it comes to technique but never made us lose ourselves in the process”.

Shyamala would often say that Bala’s music was unparalleled and was integral to the upkeep of the tradition. She regularly demonstrated the closeness of the music with the dance and asked her students to learn music so that they could better appreciate what was taught. Neela fulfilled Shyamala’s desire by learning music from T R Murthy, a flautist and student of T Viswanathan.

Shyamala expressed her faith and devotion through Bharatanatyam. Like her guru Balasaraswati, she was particularly attached to the worship of Lord Nataraja of Chidambaram. An event Shyamala held tremendously close to her heart was her dance offering before Nataraja atop the raised platform that houses the sanctum at Chidambaram.

Shyamala during a performance Picture Courtesy – Conrad Olivier

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It was very significant and an emotionally charged moment in her life. Her performance that day included Enneramum Undhan Sannidhiyil and Vazhi Maraithirukkudhe from Gopalakrishna Bharati’s Nandanar Charitram.

Karen Elliott who observed Shyamala performing across decades felt that the innate bhava in Shyamala’s presentations saturated with age. She says, “For Shyamala, this art was extremely sacred. The fluidity and the complexity with which her hands moved while performing Enneramum was amazing. When performing the line ‘thennam cholai thazhaikkum’, she would indicate the vast coconut groves and would elegantly switch to taking the coconut and breaking it open, pouring the contents as an offering to God. At that moment, she would harmoniously fill the music and rhythm with shapes making it a fulfilling visual and aural experience”.

As years progressed, Shyamala became more inward-oriented and spiritually advanced in her approach to dance. After a certain point of time, she started declining many performance opportunities and worked towards spiritual fulfilment through dance.

Her approach to Bharatanatyam Shyamala was a firm believer in the temple origins of Bharatanatyam. She was intensely respectful of the hereditary community of dancers and never failed to acknowledge their contributions to dance. She admired the aesthetic appeal and the rustic sophistication in traditional banis. She named her student Laurissa Vibhuti’s dance school in Colorado as ‘Koothambalam School of Devadasi Sadir’.

Koothambalam here represents temple and Sadir refers to the dance form practiced by hereditary women performers.

In an interview to the school, Shyamala can be heard talking about the rampant commodification of dance. She felt that Bharatanatyam Shyamala Mohanraj Picture Courtesy – Conrad Olivier

as an art form was increasingly becoming commercialized and that divinity in dance was

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being substituted by entertainment. Shyamala also expressed that today the talent of a dancer is judged by her physical appearance rather than her performance capabilities. She once said, “It is not external beauty that matters, but it is all about the beauty within. The stage is a place associated with enlightenment and transformation.”

When asked how she would define a great dancer, she said, “A good dancer is someone whose footwork, expression, hand movements and overall technique are perfect. But a great dancer is someone who has the ability to transform into the character she is portraying. The effectiveness of the bhava depends on how much the dancer enjoys her own dance!

You don’t dance for others but you dance for yourself. When I dance, I do not think of myself as an old lady. I try to become a Gopika who plays with Krishna or a pining heroine waiting for Shiva.”

Shyamala was enormously devoted to her guru Balasaraswati and would often recount incidents and anecdotes about Bala to her students. She spoke of Bala often and expressed her gratitude to her guru at each and every occasion. Her son mentioned that Bala’s death in 1984 affected her more than the death and displacement of her close relatives in Sri Lanka during the Anti-Tamil pogroms that took place in the 1980s.

Shyamala, like Bala, was hesitant to teach dance to students outside the Bala tradition. She believed that students needed to stick to a particular Bani in its entirety for their art to shine in true splendor.

Shyamala passed away on July 14th, 2015, at the age of seventy-four due to ill health. Her art lives on through her students who continue to perform and teach the Bala bani. Despite her talent, recognition and opportunities came quite late in life for Shyamala.

She never chose to dilute the quality of her art for fame and accolades. She has a solid set of values and

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principles which she passed on to her students.

Many of her students are of the opinion that the art world did not fully tap into her potential Next page: Shyamala Mohanraj during a performance in Spaces, Madras Picture Courtesy – Colette de Gargnier-Rettner

due to a multitude of reasons. A sense of sadness also prevails among some students as they feel Shyamala remained unappreciated in her younger days because she was not endowed with the social capital and financial strength that many of her contemporaries possessed.

Shyamala’s entire life was centred around art, and it is no exaggeration to state that she acted as an influential bridge between Balasaraswati and the next generation of learners who are now tasked with the responsibility of taking forward Bala’s legacy.

The full version of this article can be found in Vaak’s website

DISCOGRAPHY Shyamala Mohanraj, a tribute by Neela Bhaskhar Dance concerts by Shyamala Mohanraj: •

Madras, 1984: Part 1, Part 2

•

International House, Berkeley, CA, 1987

•

Spaces, Madras, 1991

•

Emeryville, CA, 2004

Srinivasaraghavan is an avid rasika of classical music and dance. A finance professional by occupation, he writes articles on art and culture for The Hindu and other newspapers and journals. He is also a Vainika.

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The Genius of Karaikurichi Arunachalam MV Swaroop

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O

f all the adjectives that one could use to describe the tone of the Nagaswara, the least likely is ‘pleasant’. Yet, there is no word in the English language that describes

the tone of Karukuruchi Arunachalam’s playing. There was never a twist more or a turn less.

There was never any slip (given the Nagaswara’s moody nature, even the greatest of vidwans slipped, or at least slid over a note or two, from time to time), there was never anything even including slightest imperfections in pitch. You hardly heard the usual ‘pi-pi’ sound when the player changed his seevali. Even when you heard him inhale, ever-so-subtly between phrases, he seemed to inhale in the raga he was playing. His tone was even, but not flat. Flat was, in fact, an insulting word to his music. It had the entire range, from caressing, cajoling cuteness to sheer, searing strength. He could move you to tears with his music (especially his special renditions of ragas that were derived from folk music) or it could make you smile – I challenge you to listen to a Sadhinchene he has played without your foot tapping or your whole body swaying.

This pleasantness, you could argue, was because he had preternatural control over his breath.

Yes, he did have that ability, but so did so many Nagaswara legends before and after him, including his teacher TN Rajarathinam Pillai. Can you even be a great Nagaswara player without the highest level of breath control? What made his tone pure and distinct? Was it his mastery over that most elusive, underrated skill in Carnatic music i.e. phrasing? A musician could have the clearest voice, bowing, strokes or blowing and yet still fail to have a pleasant

Arunachalam with TN Rajarathnam Pillai during a concert

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tone if the phrases are not clean. Clean phrases come from an uncluttered mind. By this, I am not talking about a mind that has eliminated clutter but I am referring to that kind of a mind that cannot hold clutter in the first place. His music was all never like that of a torrential downpour, but it was like like a bracing drizzle that gently turns into a heavy rain.

It did not matter what he was playing. It could be a short fragment to introduce a raga, or long breathless passages traversing octaves at blinding speed. It did not matter if it were a kriti or swarakalpana, Arunachalam’s phrases were pristine. His phrases had clarity.

There is a recording of him playing Ela Ni Dayaradu in Atana that demonstrates the philosophy of his music. It starts with the most time worn phrase MPRS, signalling to the listener that this is Atana. Two or three short phrases that are very traditional follow this.

There is a break, the Tavil vidhwan fills in the gap with a jati. Arunachalam starts again, this Arunachalam with wives and children.

Also seen are his sister and her children.

time focusing his attention on the source of Atana’s life, the tarasthayi R. Again, he rolls out a couple of beautiful phrases, and after the briefest pause, plays a very unusual gamaka

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on the R. If you had to notate it, you would probably write R S,RGM, R but the G isn’t really there or is it? You rewind it, hear the phrase again. You are still not sure, you are back to thinking that this is a gamaka and not a swara of its own. This G is a little secret that Arunachalam has discovered in Atana. He employs it again and this time the G stands on its own. When you hear it you are startled. Even if you are an ardent traditionalist, you cannot quarrel with the fact that this gamaka is Atana’s property. This is not an invention, this is a discovery, and Arunachalam presents this discovery in a manner that makes it easy for us to appreciate.

There are many such stamps in his renditions of other ragas. Arunachalam’s Huseni is the last word on the raga. There’s something interesting to notice in the raga alapana: every time he reaches the main S, he suffixes it with a little inflection-phrase S,R N D. The R in this phrase is Hamletian – is it there, is it not – because he mutes his blowing to such an extent as to create an illusion. What this little quirk does to the alapana itself is that it gives it a flowing, swinging quality; it has never settled on a tonic note. What it also does is that it marks

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Huseni’s territory. This phrase is definitely not Anandabhairavi, Mukhari, Kharaharapriya or any other raga that shares Huseni’s borders.

A mention must be made of Arunachalam’s special Yadukula Kambhoji. While handling this raga, he plays the stock phrases as dovetailed into larger phrases. These are the phrases that scream Yadukula Kambhoji and don’t become (in GNB’s

words)

‘Shankarabharanamic’

or

‘Kambhojical’. Most musicians, even the great ones, who handle this raga like to go through some of these phrases to get themselves and the listeners into the raga but Arunachalam does not need that.

Arunachalam’s Shanmukhapriya is a genre of its own. Like his teacher, he was adept at playing the alapana for this raga. Both teacher and student locate the heart of the raga in that ambiguous space between P, D and N. Sometimes these swaras are handled plain, sometimes the gamakas are

exaggerated,

sometimes

they

are

imperceptible oscillations, and sometimes you know that what is being explored is merely a sound on a sliding scale between these notes that defy any definition. Even though they both use the R as the landing note or even G as a note to hold during phrases, you can tell that it’s the P, D and N that they want to explore the most. The difference between teacher and student is that Arunachalam has a modicum of restraint.

Rajarathinam Pillai bombards you with ideas.

The next idea is unleashed even before the previous one has landed. But Arunachalam takes his time. It’s almost as if he wanted the listener to understand those phrases and see the enigma that

Nagaswara

players

can

explore

in

Shanmukhapriya. He repeats the phrases and gives a dramatic pause after them, as if to ask, ‘I hope you processed that?’.

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Many years ago, I used to listen to Rajarathinam Pillai day and night. During this time my guru, N Ramani, mentioned that I must listen to Arunachalam. While I took that advice and became an Arunachalam fan, often listening to recordings along with my guru on car journeys to and from concerts, it is extensive listening that made me understand that advice.

My friend Lalitha Ram shared a recording of Karukuruchi Arunachalam playing the raga Vachaspati. It was a mistake on his part. I listened to it repeatedly. I listened to it while driving, while sitting around in office and even while waiting for my cases to be taken up in the virtual court. Every morning, I would wake up and put on that recording on my phone, put my phone in my pocket and walk around the house. I was so astonished by the Vachaspati that I thought no words I ever write would do justice to Arunachalam’s music.

For a whole week, I heard only Arunachalam’s music from whatever sources I could find.

Every time I set aside time to write about this, I would end up just listening for an hour or so and not write a word. Of course, like all assignments, I finally write this under the pressure of a deadline, for if there weren’t one, I’d spend the next few months listening and re-listening to recordings wondering where to start. Also, just to clarify, I will still not write about that Vachaspati – it has to be heard to be believed.

MV Swaroop is a flautist and lawyer based in Madras.

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Farewell Keshav!

Sriram Venkatakrishnan

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D

o you know Keshav Desiraju? asked my mentor KV Ramanathan. “You don’t?

Well you must meet him when you are in Delhi next. He is one of the finest minds

I know when it comes to Carnatic Music and much else.” Coming from KVR this was high praise indeed and I looked forward to the meeting as and when it would happen. In the meanwhile Four Score & More, the History of the Music Academy Madras, written by Malathi Rangaswami and me, was released and Keshav wrote a review of it for a paper in Delhi. It was not exactly a flattering review but the underlying fairness was clear. That made me want to meet him even more.

The opportunity came when good friend Indira Menon organised a talk by me on Devadasis at the Indian Habitat Centre in Delhi. Sarada and I made it a holiday of sorts, taking the boys on a extended tour of all my happy hunting grounds — Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri. The talk had a good audience turnout thanks to Indira who was indefatigable in her publicity for it. Among the attendees were Ram Guha and Keshav Desiraju. We became friends thereafter and regularly kept in touch. And then when he retired from his distinguished career in the IAS, Keshav decided to settle in Chennai, not far from where I live. We would meet often for tea and discuss our favourite topic — Carnatic music. We liked the same artistes and that was a great foundation to begin with.

(On an aside, when Sarada and I met in 1992, the only thing we had in common was Carnatic music and a liking for the same artistes — I must say that on that foundation we have got along very well.) The conversations would also include delectable sprinklings of stories on his grandfather Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, uncle Sarvepalli Gopal and career in the IAS. He had a whole lot of observations on the pillars of our society — never malicious but always pithy summings up loaded with humour.

Keshav had another side to him – his expertise on public health and his concern for building facilities for handling mental health in India. He was on the board of some of Chennai’s famed public and charitable health institutions. Of that aspect I know very little other than that those who worked with him were in complete awe of his expansive knowledge, his dedication to the cause and his ability to move heaven and earth to help. It was Keshav’s dearest wish to write a biography of MS Subbulakshmi. I was one of those that tried to dissuade him from the task – what was left to write about her after TJS George and several others? But he was quite firm and laboured long and hard at it. The project took ten years and the actual writing around a year and a half. It was published by Harper Collins as Of

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Gifted Voice and released a year or so ago. I ordered my copy with no great expectations on anything new. And then I realised how mistaken I was. Keshav had taken up an entirely new angle – that of music as the bedrock of the story. Everything else – Shanmukhavadivu, Sadasivam, Meera, the charities (all the standard stock-in-trade for an MS bio) – was there but was clearly only second fiddle, to the core – which was her music. Keshav painstakingly analysed her concerts – from lists, recordings and reviews – over her career spanning from 1932 to 1977 or so, and brought forth several startling truths long forgotten. Here was an artiste who had an extensive repertoire, that sang RTPs regularly and brought a great freshness to each song rendered, no matter how many times she sang it. Keshav also did the unthinkable – he was critical of this idol, especially when it came to her concert planning at venues outside of the citadels of Music Academy, Tyagaraja Aradhana and the Tamil Isai Sangam. He had some sharp observations on Sadasivam but conceded that MS herself had made

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a choice and had to live with that. In that sense she too carried some of the blame for what her music eventually evolved to represent – bhajans and chants.

Couched in perfect language, the book looked at the world of women artistes in detail and there were many moments during my reading when my eyes filled with tears and when snorts of emotion made me pause. I later told him that while MS may have been the central character in the book, there were several more jostling for space – Madras Lalithangi, T Brinda, T Muktha, T Balasaraswathi, ML Vasanthakumari, DK Pattammal and NC Vasanthakokilam.

He had made his work a tribute to all these formidable artistes. He agreed. In my view it was the finest book on an Indian musician. To be able to write on MS, you had to be a Keshav Desiraju. The grand old lady had clearly pulled strings from up there. It had taken a while, but it was well worth the wait. MS had a fitting epitaph, one that would set the record

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straight, much needed after the kind of immature stuff that had been written about her in recent times. The book came in for critical praise and was received well by the public.

Keshav gave talks on it at several forums, COVID lockdowns notwithstanding. He was happy with the response. A couple of days ago I invited him to speak on the music of MS Subbulakshmi in this year’s December series of lec-dems at the Music Academy . He agreed.

But that is now not to be.

I am sure Keshav had a lot more to contribute in all the areas of life that he was interested in.

Which is why I cannot understand why he had to go so soon. Certainly, my life will be somewhat lonelier – the number of people I can just call to laugh with or ponder over matters has shrunk. Farewell my friend. That you had to go on your grandfather’s birthday makes it all the more poignant. But tell me, whom am I to call to rejoice over the latest vintage recordings released over YouTube by channels such as Nadabhrnga and Vaak?

Sriram

Venkatakrishnan

is

an

Indian

entrepreneur, columnist, music historian and heritage activist. He had his schooling in Madras and Calcutta. His Bachelors in engineering from the Delhi College of Engineering in 1987 was followed by a masters in business administration specializing in marketing and advertising from Delhi University. Sriram then moved on to a varied career in marketing and advertising before joining his family businesses in Industrial Hydraulics and Software.

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Karukurichi Arunachalam: A Short Profile Shailesh Ramamurthy & Lalitharam

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K

arukurichi is a small village in the Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu, which has been placed on the Karnatik music map by P Arunachalam, the Nagaswara

maestro. Arunachalam was born on 26 April 1921, and the events leading up to his birth are nothing short of magical. The legendary Nagaswara player and composer Koorainadu Natesa Pillai was once invited to play in Karukurichi for a wedding. Palavesam, Arunchalam’s father, was in the audience and he was so impressed by the playing and the stature that Natesa Pillai commanded that Palavesam spontaneously decided to take up playing the Nagaswara as his profession. While he couldn’t establish a great career in music for himself, he ensured that his son would get the necessary training at a very young age.

Young Arunachalam started his Nagaswara tutelage under his father Palavesam. He also learnt vocal music from Kalakkad Subbiah Bhagavathar. He started performing as a naiyandi melam artist until his life changed when the legendary TN Rajaratnam Pillai (TNR) visited Kallidaikuruchi for a wedding concert. While TNR was slated to perform in the evening, young Karukurichi Arunachalam was the local artiste who was appointed to play during the marriage rituals. Upon hearing the youngster’s music, TNR immediately summoned him and offered to take him as a student. In a few years, Arunachalam became a regular accompanying artiste to his illustrious guru.

The late 1940s saw Arunachalam grow in stature as a solo performer. While TNR’s style did leave an indelible impact on Arunachalam’s approach to raga alapana , he was also heavily influenced by Vilathikulam Swamigal, who was known for extensive raga elaboration. His family members reveal that Arunachalam’s cousin Kurumalai Lakshmi Ammal had also influenced his music through informal interactions. These influences, along with his own pleasant personality, played a significant role in his carving a style of his own. Along with his childhood friend M Arunachalam, he performed at events and the duo were known as the ‘Karukurichi brothers’.

A rich and full tone (sunaadam), aligned to sruti (suswara), is what comes to mind as one pictures Arunachalam’s music. While Nagaswara players must exercise great care to avoid or minimize tonal slips, one finds Arunachalam’s playing very consistent in a manner that there is no scope for tonal slips. The listener’s attention is first drawn to the amount of energy invested in the elongated notes (kaarvais) as well as sustained phrases involving a cascade of musical notes in movement, played with seemingly a single breath, all rich in tonality.

He was adept at producing synergy between the blowing and fingering technique and the details in his music were all smoothly connected with an aesthetics of nuance (kuzhaivu). His musical idea development is organic and the transitions — however adroit they might be — never seem abrupt. Other embellishments, like briga, jaaru , pratyahata gamakas , also shone like gems in Arunachalam’s renditions. While such embellishments define the very character

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of Nagaswara music in general, Arunchalam’s masterly execution of long passages filled with such details set the highest standard for Nagaswara music for times to come.

Arunachalam in a performance with Above: Shivaji & Gemini Ganeshan Below: Namagiripettai Krishnan

It would be no exaggeration to say that Arunachalam’s Nagaswara instrument sang. It should be remembered that this observation is not limited to compositions or the lyrics thereof but also to the smoothness of vocal delivery, the richness of vocal gamakas and the warmth of a human voice have all been combined into the overall mix, along with the instrumental virtuosity. He also shone in his diligent presentations of kritis. Some

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eyewitnesses have recounted that he took special care in planning the sangatis and structure of the kritis he rendered.

Adapting Shakespeare from Antony and Cleopatra, it can be said about Karukurichi that, "Age cannot wither his style, nor custom stale / His infinite variety". Vinyl records that were professionally recorded and brought out in the mid-20th century are attestations to this sentiment. Several decades have passed on but his renditions are evergreen in the connoisseur’s mind. Even today, when a professional live Nagaswara cannot be engaged in

Above: Arunachalam with Vilathikulam Swamigal

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certain situations, these records are often played at functions requiring Nagaswara. Ela Nee Dayaraadu (Athana), Rama Ninne (Husieni), I Vasudha (Sahana), Sarasijanabha Sodari (Nagagandhari), Chakkani Rajamargamu (Karaharapriya) – all of these have been evergreen favorites.

His Kalpanaswaras for kritis are mostly in the sarvalaghu where his focus was on bringing out the raga’s character rather than showing off mathematical patterns. The swara exercises, especially during the first hour of the concert, are usually lengthy and breezy. Unique waltzy swaras rendered in between the raga alapana and the pallavi is something unique to Karukurichi. There are stretches of elaborate raga sancharas (like within an alapana) within kalpanaswaras where the Tavil plays a less active role and this strategy heightens the effect in his chosen style of rendition.

A large part of his success can be attributed to his trusted partners. Karukurichi M Arunachalam, who played the second Nagaswara, played a perfect foil. Despite his own considerable talent, his playing is often restrained, with a sole objective of enhancing the overall effect of the concert.

Sankaran, who played the ottu (drone), also doubled up as Karukurichi’s

driver

Perumpallam

and

his

Venkatesan

personal

and

secretary.

Ambasamudram

Kuzhandhaivelu pretty much dedicated their career to Karukurichi as his ‘Set Thavil' artistes. Among the special Thavil artistes, Nachiarkoil Raghava Pillai, NeedaMangalam Shanmugavadivel,

Yazhpanam

Dakshinamurthi

and

Valangaiman Shanmugasundaram Pillai regularly performed with Arunachalam. The presence of such legendary artistes invariably inspired Arunachalam to reach dizzy heights of creativity.

The 1950s saw Arunachalam’s popularity extend beyond the music circle. He was very close to leaders of the Congress Party — especially with K Kamaraj, the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. He was constantly on the move, performing in every nook and corner of India and Sri Lanka. A story goes that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, in a function

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with Karaikurichi, had joked, “I know that this crowd assembled here is not to hear me speak but to hear Karukurichi Arunachalam play”. Despite earning huge fame and money, Karukurichi remained accessible to his fans.

In 1962, Arunachalam’s playing attained immortal status as his Nagaswara was featured in the movie ‘Konjum Salangai’. ‘Singaravelane deva’, a duet with the legendary singer S Janaki was a runaway hit. His already busy career became busier as he was asked to perform in many premier institutions across India. Marriage dates were fixed based on his availability.

Exceptions were made to accommodate his schedule. A live broadcast on the radio of his concert held at Tamil Isai Sangam was extended well beyond the allocated slot as Arunachalam played several hours past midnight. He had truly established himself as the successor to TNR in musical acumen, stature, and fame.

He suddenly passed away on 6 April 1964. He was just 43 and was at the peak of his prowess when he suffered a cardiac arrest. It is said that he was discussing his dream project of establishing a music school in Kovilpatti with the district collector when he collapsed. He had won many awards and honors, and among them ‘Nagaswara Isaichelvan’ and 'Nagaswara Kalanidhi’ were among his favorites. He displayed these titles on his letterheads.

Fortunately, many recordings of his performances have survived. These ensure that his music resonates in the hearts of listeners even after several decades of his passing away.

DISCOGRAPHY Listen with Lalitharam | Karaikurichi P Arunachalam Karukurichi P Arunachalam - Adivel Festival, Colombo, 1961 Centenary Tribute at THE MUSIC ACADEMY 2021 Bharathy Baskar | Short Story

Shailesh Ramamurthy was initiated into Carnatic music at a very young age by his family. He has also published research articles on flute and flute making. He lives and works in Bangalore. His interests include select aspects of Indian musicology (Chaturdandiprakashika and Sangeeta Sampradaya Pradarshini among other works).

Lalitharam is a writer on subjects related to classical music, Indian history and arts. He is also the founder trustee of Parivadini Charitable Trust. He has written biographies of GN Balasubramaniam and Pazani Subramania Pillai and made documentary movies on S Rajam, GNB and Pazhani Subramania Pillai.

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Vaak Recommends MD Ramanathan Shreyas Kuchibhotla Ananthakrishna Panuganti

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V

aak hosted its listening session on the music of Vid. M D Ramanathan, on 31st

October 2021. In collaboration with Ananthakrishna Panuganti and Shreyas

Kuchibhotla, we have put together a discography of the session, accompanied by introductory and explanatory notes for each track. ________ Before we begin, we would like to for you to remember that MD Ramanathan (MDR) was a musician far beyond our common perception of the term. He understood music as it should be. Although music to him was an abstract, ethereal entity unfettered by labels and constraints, he did not flout tradition for the sake of it. He instead reconstructed his music and loved it for its own sake. He empathised with the composers whose work he presented.

He often placing himself in their position while enthralling himself and his audience with the inherent bhava of the composition. We can presume that he did not recognise the boundaries between raga, tala and sahitya. He only looked at music as sound, and each musical piece as a means to convey the essence of that sound.

MDR, as he is fondly known, is certainly an acquired taste. Many found (and find) it hard to come to terms with his patala sruti, unconventional choice of pace, characteristic slurred accent and what one might call idiosyncratic interaction with lyrics. MDR, over his 30 odd year-long career, simply did not care. He sang as he pleased, and stayed true to his musical beliefs till his last breath. This established him as a niche performer even during his lifetime.

By giving you a glimpse of MDR’s music, we aim to introduce him and his definition of music to new listeners, provide delectably familiar strains of music for seasoned aficionados of MDR’s aesthetic, and all-in-all ensure that all of you come out of this session with a deeper understanding and appreciation for his unique brand of Carnatic music.

Note: This is not a session purely for connoisseurs of MDR’s music and therefore does not necessarily contain all of his evergreen renditions. This is simply intended to be a nonexhaustive starting point from which to journey into MDR’s music. Most importantly, we request you not to derive your enjoyment of this session from a preset expectation of diversity of ragas, talas, composers and manodharma but rather, as we did, from a more complete picture of MDR’s sangeetham.

Sri – Endaro Mahanubhavulu – Adi – Thyagaraja One of the most celebrated, loved and venerated compositions in the Carnatic milieu, Tyagaraja’s magnum opus in Sri raga is a true work of art. Reverent in tone yet animated in spirit, Endaro Mahanubhavulu is an ode to the great souls of yore. MDR made this kriti his own, masterfully creating a new layer on an already rich canvas. Endaro Mahanubhavulu was a composition he rendered very often, each time embellishing it with an exhaustive

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essay of a raga often thought to be lacking in improvisational potential.

In this rendition, he begins with the word Mahanubhavulu, exploring the melodic possibilities around this one word for nearly five minutes before finally tagging it with Endaro. At such a challenging point in the tala, MDR carefully and deliberately builds up a majestic neraval while repeatedly emphasising the very crux of Tyagaraja’s lyrical intent with the term that sums up the entire kriti. His deep, powerful voice aids in sustaining the simultaneously serene and statuesque tone.

MDR was perhaps the first artist to give such an expansive treatment to Tyagaraja’s Ghana Raga Pancharatnam, and his affinity and flair for Sri raga (in his own words: the smallest name, the biggest raga), creates a magical experience for his audience. ________ Natai – Sarasijanabha (Varnam) – Adi – Palghat Sri Parameshwara Bhagavathar MDR was particularly fond of the raga Natai, and his many elaborate renditions of weighty gems like Jagadanandakaraka and Ninne Bhajana stand testimony to his thorough understanding of the phraseology and nature of this raga. He was also enamoured with the varnam, and time and time again refused to present it as a perfunctory throat-warmer. Where his two loves meet, there is bound to be magic!

In this relatively rare rendition of the Natai raga varnam, MDR takes his time (as is his wont)

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to explore and demonstrate the specialties of each of the ettugada/chittaswaras of the uttarangam. This he does by leveraging his unique style of enunciation to create a musical effect akin to that of syncopation. In our opinion, this recording is a sterling example of how MDR approached the idea of sound and voice. His trademark sonority and slurring (alongside his affinity for plain notes) are used as an effective tool to explore pre-existing patterns, and also to create novel ones. ________

Gowlipantu – Teratiyagarada – Adi – Tyagaraja ‘O Lord of Tirupati, won’t you destroy this shroud of envy?’ Tyagaraja implores Lord Venkateswara in this famous kriti. The custom thus far has been to sing it at a breakneck pace and append countless rounds of whirlwind kalpanaswaras to it. MDR, however, envisions how the great vaggeyakara himself must have sung it - a plaintive prayer.

He begins almost ponderously in the mandhra sthayi, adopting a leisurely pace throughout, enhancing the sahityabhava and bringing about wider possibilities to improvise. Replete with little gamaka frills and swaraksharams, the rendition takes a solid 7-8 minutes. It is important to note here that the pace is chosen so as to enhance the sahityabhava, the sahitya is not only respected but used as an effective conduit through which to showcase the different facets of the raga, and the melodic structure of the raga is altered so as to more effectually fit the laya.

Any MDR rendition is simply brimming with manodharma, whether or not he chooses to execute alapanams, neraval or swaraprastaram.

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Also, through this elaboration of Gaulipantu we may experience what Keats famously stated - that ‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter’, for MDR infuses even silence with the bhava of the composition. In the massive soundscape of the raga and sahitya that MDR constructs, every pause assumes an integral and meaningful role. It is this enveloping and syncretic approach to music that defines MDR. When he begins to sing, every fibre of his being, every thought of his mind and every action of his body is pure music.

________ Keeravani – Alapana A raga in Carnatic music might be considered as the addition of a specific layer of aesthetics to a specific set of rules. Keeravani (the 21st melakartha raga in Govinda Dikshita’s scheme) is a scalar creation, one that has very little musical precedent in terms of non-linearity when contrasted with established ragas of comparable provenance like Shanmukhapriya or Harikambhoji. And so, the conventional method of developing a new identity has been to Carnaticise it with respect to gamakams.

Listeners who are fond of engaging with the art in an inquisitive manner may well ask, what might happen if an artist chose to refrain from this typical exercise in Carnaticising, rather try to bring out a Carnatic flavour through the use of straight notes and phrases?

This excerpt from an alapana gives us the answer. MDR does not concern himself with grammatical questions such as whether his exploration of the raga sounds ‘heavy’ enough, nor does he adamantly defy rules. He is only aware of the fact that he is singing Keeravani, and shows his audience what it means to him. It is rigorous, sombre, elegant and ebullient all at once. He makes generous use of plain notes, particularly in his exhaustive musical rumination in the lower reaches of the octave, all while leveraging silences to enhance the effect of his short, powerful phrases. ________

Kedaragowla – Jalajanabha Mamava – Misra Chapu – Swati Tirunal The music of MDR is most often associated with his classic ponderous gait. There were, however, many instances where he rendered pieces at a faster pace yet never compromising on the bhava of the compositions or manodharma presented. One such rendition is this kuraippu swaraprastaram for Swati Tirunal’s Jalajanabha Mamava in Kedaragaula, which starts off gently with classic Kedaragaula phrases and culminates in a climax that is simultaneously foot-tapping, novel and dainty.

Kedaragaula’s structure and characteristics allow for this sort of elaboration, an allowance that MDR makes full use of. The distinctness of the swaras makes

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its phraseology flexible, accommodating straight, ullaasita and kampita gamakams, and its pliability, particularly in the higher and lower octaves, shines forth through this kalpanaswara snippet. While this kind of swaraprastharam in and of itself is not unique to MDR, his telltale octave jumps, rhythmic syncopations and subtle gamakam alterations aid in constructing a truly impressive edifice of the soundscape of Kedaragaula. ________

Manji – Varugalamo – Misra Chapu – Gopalakrishna Bharathi The composition Varugalamo is most often associated with Vid. Palghat K V Narayanaswamy, who has no doubt provided us with numerous memorably poignant renditions of the kriti. However, MDR’s interpretation of the composition, albeit less popular, is sui generis. From the gentle oscillations around the antara gandharam to the melancholy ‘Ayya’, the listener can easily perceive the saint standing in front of the temple and beseeching the lord to let him enter. This is one of the defining features of MDR’s music - when he renders a composition, he emotes as if he were in the shoes of the

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vaggeyakara. He was seldom faithful to a rigid patanthara, for he saw so much more in a composition. To him, the feelings and emotions evoked in the composition and its music were of greater importance than a preset order of sangathis or predefined conventions of rendition. In looking beyond those constraints, he was able to present truly soulful music. ________

Kalyani – Bhajana Seyave – Rupakam – Thyagaraja MDR is most known for his powerful, deep and slow renditions. However, one side of him which is not often observed is evinced very well in this rendition of Tyagaraja’s kriti in Kalyani - Bhajana Seyave Manasa. As pointed out previously, MDR was a musician who aimed to emulate the musical experience he believed was created by the composers themselves. This case is no exception, as MDR gives out an energetic and festive call to our minds, imploring us to partake in the bliss that Ramabhajana offers to its practitioners. The tempo he chooses is reflective of the jubilation one feels when they have surrendered themselves and their music to the supreme being - it does not represent discrete sections of composition, neraval and swara, but one musical being

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that reflects the ragabhava and sahityabhava with sparkle and style.

On a less philosophical note, this rendition has been chosen not only to demonstrate MDR’s unexpected dexterity in handling faster paces, but also as the immense fecundity of his musical mind. He churned out so many fresh and unconventional yet perfectly suited phrases in the neraval and swaraprastaram sections despite the unwieldy pace he chose for the composition. The entire rendition exudes mirth and cheer, and instead of adhering to the routine itinerary for a Kalyani exploration, he frolics with the swaras as he deems fit to enhance the experience. ________ Kanada – Srikanta Enage – Misra Chapu – Purandara Dasa It is often said that true musical genius lies not just in invention, but also in reinvention.

And one of the finest examples for genius in musical reinvention must be the sketch in raga Kanada that MDR performs here. The phrases he incorporates are quite conventional, but the way he structures, treats and delineates them infuses a freshness into these oft-heard phrases that makes even the familiar sound pleasantly new and unencountered.

MDR had his own method of dealing with Kanada. This is a significantly more abstract raga, and he leverages this potential by including some of his own freshly minted phrases throughout the rendition of the sketch and the composition. His handling of the composition itself is typical of his style, with a meandering approach to melody, excellent grammatical fidelity in both melodic and lyrical respects, and the seamless coequal integration of raga, sahitya and laya. There is a hallmark of his aesthetic. ________ Begada – Navarasa Sloka The Navarasa slokam was a Semmangudi favourite, and he has rendered it on countless occasions. MDR of course brings an offbeat take on the slokam to the fore, this time imagining himself to be describing the multi-faceted Rama extolled in the verse and adorning each of the lines with a novel flavour of the raga. In this case, he presents the entire slokam in Begada, choosing to begin with some patently unorthodox phrases.

It is interesting to observe how he develops Begada slowly and surely while almost assertively inserting references to the rasas wherever possible. An MDR slokam rendition is always special due to the respect he affords to the sahitya and the lengths to which he goes to ensure that the bhava is not only understood but showcased to the fullest. Most importantly, the raktitvam that he infuses into a raga is not through a conscious

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effort to eschew linearity but an unconscious

yet

deliberate

progression of seemingly unrelated ideas until they reach an all too familiar denouement. ________ Madhyamavathi

–

Nagumomu

Gala Vani –Adi – Thyagaraja The penultimate piece in this session is a recording of MDR performing the

famous

Sankeertanam,

Divya

Nama

Nagumomu

Gala

Vani, in the raga Madhyamavathi.

MDR, in his trademark fashion, throws himself into the composition and all its elements. This is a passionate,

deep

and

reflective

rendition that perfectly encapsulates the soul and emotions that Tyagaraja poured into the composition. We see MDR

performing

his

familiar

tightrope act, balancing his slow laya on one side, the deep raga and emotive sahitya on the other. This particular recording also gives us a small peek into the workings of his musical intellect.

Here MDR actually starts the kriti at a faster tempo, but promptly slows down at ‘Gala Vani’, perhaps because even as he began the rendition, he felt that a slower pace would do it more justice. This sense of thoughtful introspection, of sound judgement and of a constant state of creation, is what

makes

MDR’s

music

memorable, and perennially relevant.

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Madhyamavathi - Rupakam - Tyagaraja and Swathi Thirunal Any session about MDR and his musical oeuvre is incomplete without a discussion on his patented Mangalams. His rendition of these compositions is a lesson in how one should assess a composition solely based on its musical merit, rather than on superficial categorisations and conventions. For him, the Mangalam wasn’t an obligatory ballistic coda to a concert; it is a weighty piece in its own right and therefore deserving of respect. MDR seldom concluded his recitals with the customary Ni Nama Rupamulaku; he developed his own format for the Mangalam. Beginning with the Sourashtram, he would gently transition into a section of Tyagaraja’s composition in Madhyamavathi, Alakalellaladaga, followed by the last verse from Swati Tirunal’s behemoth creation Bhavayami Raghuramam. In this recording, we can see how he saw off his audience, his co-artists and his recital itself through this characteristically grand finale.

From a purely technical standpoint, his rendition of Alakalellaladaga is slow and measured, in contrast with the madhyamakala interpretation in vogue today. His beloved prefixes and suffixes lead to many moments of musical elation for himself and the listener, and the beautifully timed segues must be experienced firsthand to be appreciated.

The MDR kutcheri is a thing of beauty, the MDR Mangalam a joy forever. ___________

Ananthakrishna Panuganti is a passionate rasika and student of music, currently learning from Vid. Malini Ramasubrahmanya. He is pursuing a BS-MS course at IISER Thiruvananthapuram.

Shreyas Kuchibhotla is an upcoming Carnatic vocalist from Hyderabad. He has learnt from Vid. Vasavi Dhulipala, Vid. Seshulatha Kosuru and is currently studying music under Vid. Malladi Sreeramaprasad.

He is pursuing a course in biomedical engineering at Imperial College, London.

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Masked GNB

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