The Musical Legacy of Ramnad Krishnan

A conversation with RK Ramanathan

Ramnad 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 welove 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.

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

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 arepopular 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.

Ramnad Krishnan with GN Balasubramaniam

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 his wife Mangalam

Ramanathan: In 1940 he married Mangalam, daughter of Umayalpuram Kodandarama 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 till8:00 am. His practice routine would include sarali varisai, akkarams, etc. The secret of hismusic 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 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. Eventhough he did not practice everyday rituals, he was a very Godfearing man. Music was hispath 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?

Ramanathan: He studied in Ramanad Raja High School. I am told that he was very good in 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 of some good quality tapes from Holland. I wantyou to sing an RTP and archive it so that futuregenerations can learn from them”

Vaak: Was he close to any other musician apart fromGNB?

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 …. yet….in ecstatic-blissful-cheerful homage to one of the greatest musicians ever who gave usall 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.

Ramnad Krishnan with his students in Adayar music college

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 50 th 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. Someof the Padams that we don’t have a record of him singing on stage include Yala Padare (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 interpretedthe raga from the Padams and that is evident in his alapana singing. Anything he did wasraga based. He inspired a lot of manodharma from these Padams.

He was fondly known as Begada Krishnan and later as Sahana Krishnan. He alsopopularized many scales like Phalamanjari & Purnasadjam. He expanded the scale andgave 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.

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).

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 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?

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

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”.

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 Madhyamavathi. It was during this concert that Sivan told my father, “Krishna, I want you tosing 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”.

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

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 hashowever tuned two songs: Govardana Giridhara in Darbari Kanada & Kalaye Yashoda in 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