EXCELLENCE

The song supreme

M.S. Subbulaksmi is no ordinary musician; she is a living legend, a role model for every aspiring singer. A tribute on the occasion of her 83rd birthday.

C.V. NARASIMHAN

THE announcement by the President of India, K.R. Narayanan, on March 1, 1998, conferring the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in India, on M.S. Subbulakshmi was received with universal approval. It was the first time that a musician had received this signal recognition. How did this come about?

The short answer is that M.S. is no ordinary musician. Today, she is a living legend, a role model for every aspiring singer.

M.S. was born on September 16, 1916, in Madurai. Her father was Subramania Iyer, a lawyer by profession and a rasika, and her mother was Shanmugavadivu, a well-known veena player of her times. Blessed with a mellifluous voice with total tonal purity ( sruti suddham), and an unusual understanding of the subtleties and nuances of our complex musical system, best described as gnanam, M.S. quickly became a popular concert artist, as well as a recording artist. Her musical education, beginning w ith her mother, developed further under a well-known vidwan of Madurai, Srinivasa Iyer. Her first public concert was given when she was 13. She also attained proficiency on the veena, and is an accomplished veena player to this day.

In 1936, M.S. moved to Madras. Chennai was then, as it is now, the capital of Carnatic music. She was already a much-sought-after concert artist. Here she met T. Sadasivam, at that time a senior executive in the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan . She married Sadasivam in 1940, and with it began a new and very fruitful phase in her life.

For the next 57 years, until his demise in November 1997 at the age of 95, he was, in the words of M.S. herself, her "guide, philosopher and friend". With Sadasivam's encouragement she was able to meet the famous vocalists of those times, Ariyakudi Raman uja Iyengar, Musiri Subramania Iyer and Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and also the vainika, K.S. Narayanaswami. With these contacts, her repertoire expanded and her rendering of raga and kriti, neraval, swaram, and so on attained even higher levels of excellence. Semmangudi became a close friend of the family, when he moved to Madras after his distinguished tenure as principal of the Swati Tirunal College of Music in Thiruvananthapuram. Semmangudi was practically a daily visitor at the T.S.-M.S. home . Musiri was also a frequent visitor, and he gladly shared his special gift for bhava sangeetham with M.S.

RAVI SHANKARAN/WIDE ANGLE

At Ananda Vikatan, the star writer was R. Krishnamurthi, who wrote under the pen-name "Kalki". Besides writing essays, short stories, novellas and musical critiques, he composed songs which M.S. would sing. With the combination of the executive ab ility of Sadasivam and the literary talent of Kalki, a new Tamil magazine, Kalki, was established, which is still going strong.

M.S. starred in a number of films. Her earliest appearance, in the 1930s, was in Seva Sadan, in which she gave a superb rendering of the Kalyani kriti "Needu Charana". In Shakuntala she was cast opposite the great vidwan G.N. Balasubramania n, and this film was also replete with many song hits. She shared the honours with Shanta Apte in Savitri appearing as the sage Narada. Her rendering of "Broohi Mukundeti" in this film made it very popular.

Her brightest achievement in the celluloid medium was as the Krishna devotee Meera. This film was first produced in Tamil and later remade in Hindi. The Hindi version was an instant hit and established her as a great bhajan singer. As the stateswoman-poe tess Sarojini Naidu said, "it was pure enchantment... it was a true representation of Meera, nay it was Meera herself singing songs of devotion of prayerful appeal... it was Meera herself come to life." She also called M.S. the Nightingale of India.

Partly thanks to her films, but even more because of the large number of gramophone discs and (later) audio tapes, the voice of M.S. could be heard in every corner of India, from the remotest villages to the crowded metropolises. Her public concerts, whi ch were usually given for the benefit of some favoured cause, drew packed houses. On several occasions, her concerts were open-air affairs, and the audience numbered several thousands.

Her major international exposure began with her programme at the Edinburgh International Festival of Arts in 1963. In 1966, the Secretary-General of the U.N., U Thant, invited her to give a special concert at the United Nations. This programme was given in the magnificent General Assembly hall, and I had the privilege of introducing her to the audience. A coast-to-coast concert tour of the U.S. followed. This was repeated in 1977, and on this visit I had the honour of presenting her programme at the Car negie Hall in New York, where all the musical greats of this century have performed. She gave the inaugural concert of the Festival of India in London in 1982, which was attended by the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, who stayed till the end of the prog ramme. In 1987, she gave the inaugural concert of the Festival of India at the Kremlin in Moscow in the presence of the Prime Ministers of India and the USSR.

Her Meera bhajans, soaked with bhakti, may be said to have been responsible for her interest in rendering various "stotras" in Sanskrit. Her "Venkatesa Suprabhatam", first in Sanskrit and then in Tamil, rendered with perfect enunciation and beauti ful musical intonation, were best-sellers: so was her "Vishnu Sahasranamam." The other side of this record features a ragamalika rendering of the "Bhaja Govindam" of Adi Sankara with a masterly introduction in English by Rajaji.

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
At a reception hosted by United Nations Secretary-General U Thant after a special concert by M.S. Subbulakshmi in the General Assembly hall in 1966. Among others in the picture are
T. Sadasivam, daughters Radha and Vijaya,
C.V. Narasimhan, Und er Secretary-General of the U.N., G. Parthasarathy, India's Permanent Representative at the U.N., and James Rubin, an American devotee of Carnatic music.

Rajaji was a major influence on the life of T.S. and M.S. The devotion of T.S. to Rajaji was total and absolute. Rajaji's composition in Tamil, "Kurai Ondrum Illai", was set to music as a ragamalika by Kadayanallur Venkataraman. M.S.' soulful rendering o f this song has become extremely popular, and is sung by many concert artists.

T.S. and M.S. also came under the benign grace of the Paramacharya of Kanchi. It was the Acharya who composed the benediction "Maitreem Bhajata" which M.S. sang at the conclusion of her U.N. and Carnegie Hall concerts, ending with the ringing words "Srey o bhooyat sakala jananam' (Let there be grace abounding for all mankind).

While on the subject of devotional music, one must mention her record albums of the compositions of the great bhakta Tirupati Annamacharya. The compositions were beautifully sung and one has become common in Carnatic music - "Sriman Narayana", in Bhouli, thanks to M.S.' rendering of this kriti.

The laurels she has won, all unsought, are many and varied. She received the Padma Bhushan in 1954, when the national awards were instituted, and the President's award for Carnatic music in 1956. She has received several honorary doctorates. She was the first woman artist to receive the Sangita Kalanidhi title from the Music Academy of Chennai. She received the Ramon Magsaysay award, usually referred to as the Asian Nobel Prize, in 1974. The Padma Vibhushan award from the President came in 1975 and the Bharat Ratna in 1998. In 1988, she received the "Kalidas Sanman" of the Madhya Pradesh Government.

T.S. and M.S. made it a habit to give all she received to charitable causes. It all began with Rajaji's request to M.S. to give five benefit recitals for the Kasturba Memorial Fund in 1944. From then on, not only the proceeds of her concerts, but also th e considerable sums representing royalties on her gramophone records and tapes, have gone to charitable and worthwhile causes. The major beneficiaries include the Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanam, the Ramakrishna Math, the Nanak Foundation, the Subramanya B harathi memorial at Ettayapuram, the Hindu temple in Flushing, New York, the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the Kamakshi temple at Kanchi, the Sankara Nethralaya, the Cancer Institute and the Voluntary Health Services, all in Chennai, the Kamban Kazhagam, the M usic Academy and the Sri Sri Sri Mahalakshmi Mathru Bhuteswarar Trust, which is building the Kanchi Mahaswami Mani Mandapam at Orirukkai village near Kanchipuram.

N. RAM

If I were to attempt a critique of M.S.' music, I can sum it up in one word, "perfection". Her repertoire is immense and her rendering of any song in public is perfect, representing hours of dedicated effort. Her diction is a model of clarity. She learnt the correct pronunciation, and understood the meaning of every word. Her tonal purity is extraordinary. Her raga alapana is always musical and never too long. Her neraval and swara prastara are tuneful and crisp with complete master y of laya. Her bhajans can move the audience and touch hearts; she can induce in them a paravasam (ecstasy) because she is herself in such a state. She has sung bhajans in ten languages, each one of them an example of the highest standards of purity of diction and emotional content.

T.S. and M.S. together lived a life of Gandhian simplicity. (The Mahatma himself longed to hear her sing Ram Dhun and bhajans). They moved from the spacious acres of "Kalki Gardens" to a modest abode in Kotturpuram with the utmost ease. The VIPs were rec eived here with the simple dignity that was the hallmark of this blessed couple. After T.S. passed away, M.S. was truly a woman bereft. Only her bhakti to T.S.' memory and to the Almighty has sustained her. She remains the same simple unaffected h uman being, with her gentle humanity and inborn grace.

M.S. is not in the best of health, but she keeps going with some physical therapy and medical attention. One can only hope that before long she is able to resume her singing, if not at public concerts, at least through the electronic media. Her music is a god-given gift. She must sing again!

C.V. Narasimhan, a former Indian Civil Service officer, was Under Secretary-General of the United Nations between 1956 and 1978.