Musiri Subramania Iyer

There is near universal acceptance of the proposition that Carnatic vocalists should know the meanings of the lyrics of the songs they sing, whatever the language— Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam or Hindi— and that they should pronounce the words of the song correctly. Is it not necessary, then, that reviewers who comment on their performance should at least know the correct pronunciation of the words of the songs that they refer to in their writing! The answer is Yes, but it is a fact that not all of them always do. With this issue, Sruti begins an occasional column, authored by CAVIARE, in which mistakes committed by reviewers will be cited along with the correct text (in terms of pronunciation).