Ploughing a furrow
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From farming to Carnatic music has been a fortuitous journey, mridangam exponent Bhaskar Rao tells ANJANA RAJAN in the series on accompanying artistes.
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Bhaskar Rao.
SEE HIM on stage, and Bhaskar Rao looks formidable, in command, and why not? It is not just anyone who can be a mridangam accompanist to the famed Kuchipudi duo Radha and Raja Reddy. But speak to him, and Bhaskar Rao seems to shrink into a bundle of humility. Hailing from a family of farmers of village Krishnappapeta, in Andhra Pradesh's Srikakulam district, his foray into the music field would have to be considered part of destiny's plan.
"In my village there was a Hare Rama temple, where there were regular bhajan sessions. Other children and I would join in, and I used to take a clay pot, a ghatam, and play on it. I had no formal training then. Some elders heard me and advised my father to have me trained in music. They felt I had musical talent, and my father, obedient to the suggestion of the elders, sent me to a guru," relates Rao.
He joined the Vijayanagar Music College when he was 15, specialising in the mridangam. Training first under K. Veerabhadra Rao and later under G.V. Subbaraya Sarma, he spent 10 years immersed in his studies.
To the Capital
It was then that Guru Raja Reddy happened to meet the eminent mridangam exponent Ella Venkateswara Rao and consulted him on bringing a mridangam artiste to Delhi to help with his Kuchipudi centre, Natya Tarangini. The result was that in 1985, Bhaskar Rao set foot in the Capital.
"Since then, I have been with Guruji. At the time I knew nothing at all about dance accompaniment, but he taught me everything. In musical accompaniment, you can play according to your imagination, but with dance you have to follow the mathematical calculations of the dancers' steps. There is scope for improvisation in dance accompaniment too, but it is of a different kind," feels Rao.
He has travelled the world with the Reddys on their performance tours. But he hesitates to venture out alone on Delhi streets. There is really no contradiction here, since at heart, Rao is still the simple farmer, faithful and reverent to the rhythms of nature. "My father and the whole family are still in the village, farming. None of them has come into the art line."
If his father was obedient to those well-wishers who advised him to send his son to music college, Rao continues the tradition, following the guidance of the Reddys. It's just a question of one field to another.
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