P.S. Narayanaswamy

The music season of  2015-16 at Chennai was something special. The city had barely recovered from the “rain-attack” and the deluge that followed, with a trail of several lost houses, besides other, movable assets. There was sufficient ground to generate a debate on whether at all the season should happen on the same dates and on the same scale. Eventually, the upper middle-class mentality won – any disturbance to the status quo is too bothersome, so let us go ahead with it. A few musicians opted out. Some neglected musicians received calls from the sabhas to fill the vacant slots and the season went on, possibly with a slightly reduced turn out of NRIs and “NRMs” (non-resident Madrasis).

The fare on offer was, perhaps, largely predictable. Musicians customised according to the sabhas, implicitly classified as those which needed them to (1) exhibit technical skills, (2) strictly stick to orthodox stuff (3) cater to popular expectations (4) give predominance to the local language (5) mix it all up since nobody has any idea of what will sell. The last category, perhaps, was reason for confusion in the minds of young musicians and for their inhibitions on the concert platform.

Sangita Kala Acharya P.S. Narayanaswamy must be one of the most loved Carnatic music gurus living amongst us today. The recent concert festival in Chennai entitled PSN Parampara that featured 26 of his disciples was a measure not only of the quality of his mentorship but also of the enormous respect and affection he receives from them. A stickler to tradition and an unswerving follower of the Semmangudi bani, PSN has been uncompromising in the values he reiterates over and over again to his students and the public at large at every speaking opportunity. As a votary of open-mouthed, akaram-dominant vocalisation, he belongs to a vanishing breed of teachers, to whom deeply felt and aesthetically presented raga music is more important than briga and swara fireworks. “I don’t know any complex theory. All I know is what I have learnt from my guru and the great masters of the past,” he often says. As a guru, he is always pleasant and encouraging, but a firm believer nevertheless that perfect practice makes perfect.

For nearly two  hundred years (1675-1855), Tanjore, in Tamil Nadu, was  the virtual epicentre of Carnatic music. M.S. Subbulakshmi was a glorious  inheritor of  the  Carnatic  tradition that  had been  enriched  and  enlarged  by  the Tanjore  Maratha  dynasty founded by Venkoji aka Ekoji Rajah Bhonsle (1630-84), the stepbrother of the legendary Maratha king Shivaji. 

The Tanjore  Maratha  dynasty was one with a difference  for  two main reasons. Its rulers’ assimilation  into  –  and identification with  –  the  local Tamil and Telugu (the court language) cultures was so complete that over the years, their link  with  the land of their Maharashtrian ancestors was no more than totemic. And  most  of  the dynasty’s  kings,  besides being great  patrons  of scholarship,  learning, fine arts and culture, were  also highly regarded music composers or musicologists. Thanks  to  the  contributions  of  some of the kings and the musicians at their courts, several musical or quasi-musical forms of Maharashtrian origin were added to the Carnatic  mainstream  repertoire. These  were Harikatha kalakshepam (known in Maharashtra simply as Keertan or Harikeertan), bhajans,  several operas, and  the  best-loved  among  them  all – abhang. M.S. Subbulakshmi sang at least three Tukaram abhangs.

"Break a coconut”. “It will relieve the stress.”

These words echo in my mind almost 18 years after I heard them from Mrinalini Sarabhai “Amma” at Darpana in Ahmedabad. There was some problem with a copying machine; and this is how Amma assured the person dealing with the copier that everything would be all right.

Yes, “Everything will be all right” were the reassuring words. For Mrinalini Amma there was no issue hard enough; it would all be resolved. I still think of her words any time I find something stressful.

Amma then was almost 80; just a few years younger than my grandmother. She was from a generation that had been born in the pre-electricity era. She was in the big league along with folks like musician Lakshmi Shankar, a south Indian who had made a name for herself all over India and the world, very strongly grounded in her native art form. She had built institutions and had taken art forms to new dimensions.