Nurtured by Mysore palace
SRIRAM VENKATKRISHNAN
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The rulers were so impressed with the sonorous voice of Bidaram Krishnappa that many honours were heaped on him.
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Founder of Sita Mandiram: Bidaram Krishnappa.
On July 31, 1931, The Hindu carried a report from its Mysore correspondent stating that all lovers of music in Southern India will be sorry to hear of the death of Ganavisharada Bidaram Krishnappa, the famous musician of the Mysor
e Palace. He had passed away on July 29.
Krishnappa had put the word Bidaram on the musical map of India and yet, this was not the name of a village. The family hailed from Nandalike village in present day southern Karnataka. His father Viswanathaiah was a drama artiste and worked in the pilgrim centre of Dharmasthala and was known for his performance of the role of Sita. Krishnappa was born in 1866.
Maharaja Krishnarajendra Wodeyar III happened to witness a performance of the troupe and invited the leader Seshappa to come down to Mysore and perform there. The party was housed in a palace guest house for which the local term was Bidara. All the members were therefore referred to as Bidaradavaru or those from the guest house and hence the prefix to Krishnappa’s name.
Life was not easy in the beginning for Krishnappa with father Viswanathiah ageing. Mother Saraswathi Bai suggested that the two sons Subbaraya and Krishnappa could go about the city singing the songs they knew and collect alms. This became the practice and large crowds would collect to listen to them.
This way Krishnappa met two of his benefactors, Dr. Nanjunda Rao and a money lender, Thimmayya. The latter got Krishnappa apprenticed under Karur Ramaswamy, a well-known musician. Later, the benefactors ensured that he was trained under the palace scholar and stage artiste Giribhatta Thimmayya.
The drama troupe to which Krishnappa’s father belonged was taken over by the palace administration and with that the bad days ended for Krishnappa. He trained under two palace artistes, Veena Seshanna and Karigiri Rao.
First performance
For the first performance at the palace after the accreditation, the troupe gave Krishnappa the role of the sutradhara or narrator. The ruler Chamarajendra Wodeyar X was impressed by the sonorous voice of Krishnappa and his majestic personality. Many honours were heaped on him.
Patronage under the succeeding ruler Krishnarajendra Wodeyar IV was also munificent and Krishnappa was conferred the title, ‘Gana Visharada’ in 1903 and was showered with gold in 1908.
Krishnappa may not have become well known in Madras city had it not been for his disciple Nagarathnamma who had by 1905 become a famed singer of the metropolis. For her house warming ceremony she invited her Guru to perform and invited several leading lights of the city including Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, who that year had become the proprietor of The Hindu. The citizens of Madras took note of Krishnappa’s prowess and became his ardent fans.
Later, Krishnappa was to be an active experts’ committee member of the Music Academy, founded in 1928.
Krishnappa had two great obsessions. One was physical fitness and he insisted on going through a gruelling regimen everyday and also subjected his disciples to it. He was a generous, though very strict, teacher and gave freely of his repertoire to many learners. Among these was T. Chowdiah, who later became a great violinist, though his Guru never warmed to the seven-stringed violin the former created.
Krishnappa’s second obsession was the building of the Sitarama Mandiram in Mysore. He felt that though Mysore possessed many Rama Mandirams none had a hall in which music could be rendered as it ought to be. He therefore donated most of his life’s earnings to build the Mandiram. The Hindu in its obituary noted that he was the founder of Sitarama Mandiram built at a cost of about Rs. 40,000 with great artistic beauty. Krishnappa spent from his own purse and public don
ations helped.
Once, a business magnate of Madras, Alwar Chetty suffered a great business loss and went into a depression. Krishnappa being a good friend, came down from Mysore and spent a week with him and sang almost everyday most of the time.
Chetty recovered and the grateful family asked Krishnappa to name his reward. He asked them to donate a few girders for the Sitarama Mandiram!
It is no coincidence that when he was building the Mandiram, his disciple Nagarathnamma was constructing the temple over Tyagaraja’s Samadhi in Tiruvaiyaru. It was a letter from Krishnappa lamenting the condition of the Samadhi in 1921 that had spurred her on to the task.
Such a generous musician was well loved and when he died it is no wonder that his funeral which took place on July 30 was attended by a large number of relatives, admirers and disciples. The Sitarama Mandiram remains a monument to his passion and perseverance.
(The author can be contacted at srirambts@gmail.com)
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