Down memory lane with M. S.
B. Ramadevi
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A multimedia presentation on M. S. kept the audience riveted.
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— PHOTO: S. Siva Saravanan
REMEMBERING A CELEBRITY: Sriram Venkatkrishnan tracing the life of a legend.
The name M.S., still works magic. The large number of rasikas who turned out at GKD auditorium, Coimbatore, to partake in the multimedia presentation, by Sriram Venkatkrishnan, on the life, music and achievements of M.S. proves this fact.
Being a student of music as well as history, Sriram had taken care to collect all the relevant details, photographs, anecdotes and movie clips for his presentation.
A real treat
It was arranged in three parts, the first one concerning her life, the second her films and the third her music.
As he started narrating the early life of M.S., her struggles, her heartaches and her honours, the little girl from Madurai started emerging as a great presence. Sriram rightly pointed out that whether she lived in the sprawling Kalki gardens or the rented house later, she was involved only with her music and the prosperity or adversity affected neither her nor her music.
The movie clips presented by Sriram had been selected with great care. The clips from Seva sadanam, Savithri (in which she played the role of Narada) and Meera were a real treat. He described the techniques used by the director for presenting M.S. as an ethereal beauty in Meera. He narrated plenty of anecdotes that concerned M.S. directly or brought out her greatness indirectly.
Kanchi Paramacharya had once compared her purity to that of Tulsi. Dr. Cherian had commented that the melodious voice was perhaps due to an unusual structure of her vocal chords. She never had more than seven sarees at a time and when the eighth saree came, one of them was donated to a deserving person. She donated all that she earned to suffering institutions and as the cheque of payment was written in the name of the institution that would receive it and she received it and passed it on to them on the stage. Later on during difficult days, when he was offered some help Sadasivam firmly refused it saying they were used only to giving and not receiving.
Spell binding
During the third session, Sriram just played the alapana in Shankarabharanam and a few well known songs such as `Jagadodharana,' `Maithreem Bhajatha' and the English hymn `May the lord' silently declaring that M.S.'s music has to be listened to and not talked about. The audience sat spell-bound for more than two hours. The theme undoubtedly drew the crowd.
But it was Sriram Venkatkrishnan's casual, yet impressive narration, liberally sprinkled with lively and humorous quotations in Tamil, that made the audience sit glued to their seats. He seemed to know more about M.S. than M.S. herself and had she seen this presentation, she would have laughed shyly wondering whether all this greatness belonged to her.
M.S.'s rasikas will remain grateful to Alapana, Coimbatore, for having organised such a memorable programme.
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