Enduring song of the soul
DEEPA GANESH
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Voices Within is a striking book that captures the life and art of seven legends of Carnatic music, mostly through pictures
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UNENDING JOURNEY The book discusses several anecdotes from the life of the musicians that serve as important markers to their attitude to life and music
Flip through the pages of this book with arresting looks; Voices Within. In a minute you'll know it talks about a world gone by: a time and age when passions existed for its own sake. The market was there, so were the temptations that go right back to Adam's times, and the people who inhabited the times were no infallible human beings either. But what strikes you about the seven great musicians whose life and music the book discusses, is their single-minded passion, their awe for knowledge; something we'd now find difficult to comprehend.
The book speaks of many things that are rare for these times. For instance, the unflagging devotion for their art triggered in them a deep respect for fellow musicians, despite petty jealousies and professional rivalry. After reading 170 pages of this pictorially delightful book, there was one episode that wouldn't cease to haunt me. It was apparently a concert that had all the three greats - Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, and GNB - performing together. GNB, much junior to Ariyakudi, found out that he was being paid more. He didn't hesitate to walk up to the organisers and insist they had to pay Ariyakudi as much as him, if not more.
Voices Within by renowned Carnatic vocalists T.M. Krishna and Bombay Jayashri is not very rich in terms of its content. It has many interesting anecdotes from the lives of these musicians, which serve as important markers for a study of their attitude to life and music.
Read this bit about the flute wizard T.R. Mahalingam: "Mali was unafraid of his audiences, his peers, his organisers, his critics. He was not afraid of refusing honours. He scorned and refused an award from the Sangeet Natak Academy and the Padmashri. But he remained afraid of himself; afraid of the standards he set for himself, of his inability to satisfactorily transcend the capacity of the bamboo that called to him, and his inability to bring the art in his mind to his fingers and lips. `I realise the futility of everything in this creation,' he often said." For Mali, he was his greatest challenge. Nothing, not even the lure of money could compel him to be intellectually dishonest. For him, each concert had to be a discovery, a self-persecuting rediscovery. That's probably why Mali was infamous for abandoning his concerts half way.
The book then, could be understood at two different perspectives. It is at once an eternal source of inspiration, a guiding light and also a past which continues to live in the present. It as at the same time the inner call of these maestros, their own deep convictions, individual explorations. So, the book constantly operates with a dichotomy: even as it discusses the personal faith of the legends as they were, it also has portions that naturally put these musicians on a high pedestal, which tend to get adulatory in nature. You cannot escape this in the chapter on M.S. Subbulakshmi, "Windsong". There is no contention that she is one of the finest musicians of our times, but she would do better without the flowery trimmings that almost border on the maudlin.
But what redeems such emotional drift aways is the manner in which the book seeks to humanise these musicians. The bit about Semmangudi as someone who indulged in manoeuvring and politicking, often caught making snide observations about his contemporaries... Or T.N. Rajarathnam Pillai even with his high-pitched social justice battles in the music arena would settle for nothing less than diamond earrings, leather shoes and silk dhotis. Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar wanted music to be a male stronghold. Apart from being legendary in his music, he was also a legendary miser. But they were pardonable because of his great music and the manner in which he would lose his heart to a jar of honey or a little box of snuff. When friends gave it to him, he was willing to sing for them for hours together.
The book is a delight with all those wonderful pictures that have been brought together from various sources. In fact, this book of love and respect has to be bought more for its pictures. There's a very interesting concert poster for Ariyakudi's concert in 1943. The concert sponsored by Hamam and Oriental Balm, has the list of kritis he will sing in the concert!
The book surely needs better editing: while some usages are very clumsy, translations don't work in many portions. Take for example the "oru avarthanam swarams" in page 8, it could have been better than "short, sharp phrases continuously rendered without many pauses", which is not what it is entirely.
Voices Within keeps you firmly connected to that past which gives you sustenance, even as you make your flights in the present.
For copies call 0-98840 87520 or log on to www.matrka.org
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