Of heritage, dreams and fulfilment
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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The wheel would come a full circle when the Akkarai Sisters turn full-fledged vocalists.
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Photos: K.V.Srinivasan and R. Shivaji Rao.
THREE GENERATIONS: Father Akkarai Swaminathan, who is guiding his daughters, Subbulakshmi and Swarnalatha.
With his robust style, varied repertoire, and expansive manodharma, the musician is well-established on the concert circuit in his district. His treasury of Tamil songs has made him a favourite in Sri Lanka.
One day, a boy approaches him for training. Suddenly, the senior realises that he is unequipped for the task. Never having learnt from a guru, he knows nothing of graded exercises or teaching methods. His own music — vocal and violin — is the result of osmosis.
“So my father Sivasubramania Pillai began to learn the basics from Arunachala Annavi. In no time at all, he too became a teacher to reckon with,” laughs Akkarai Swaminathan, himself a violinist who opted to stay out of the concert circuit. “A mistake I guess. I cry over it. I’m trying to rectify it through my daughters Subbulakshmi and Swarnalatha.”
His success can be measured from the fact that when she accompanied dancers as a little girl in pavadai chattai, Subbulakshmi’s classicism and bhava were noticeable. A much sought-after accompanist today, her taste for the best is part of her background.
Grandfather Pillai broke many rules when he took his Brahmin student Sornammal for second wife. “I was fatherless, we were poor,” explains Sornammal, now 75. “He promised to establish me as a musician. He did.”
Appointed music teacher in the local school, Sornammal found the concert experience distasteful. “In my district, people insisted on film songs which I didn’t want to sing,” she explains. One day, a villager shouted gruffly, “Why do you sit and sing? Stand, dance, declaim, act, make it lively!”
The inspiration
Sornammal.
Pillai had an inspiration. Harikatha was the answer. He had Sornammal learn the tradition from V.S.Ramaiyar. He wrote out the story and the songs himself for Valli Tirumanam.
A new and successful career was launched in a regular 15 years’ circuit of small towns including Suchindram, Nagercoil, Puliyurkurichi, Kalaiyarcoil. If she complained that home and school kept her too busy to learn new scripts and songs, the husband said, “Don’t gossip, use free periods for learning.”
When incessant colds prevented Pillai from performing, he continued teaching in the surrounding towns. Sornammal, renamed Senkottai Thangam (“We didn’t want my school to know I was performing in public”), became his alter ego.
His love of Tamil and musicianship had full play in the songs he composed for Sita and Parvati Kalyanam, Andal and Tirunavukkarasar Charitram, and her favourite Karaikkal Ammaiyar Charitram.
Pillai’s skills are reflected in the songs. One song has six yatis. Another brims with swarakshara and sollukattu to image Karaikkal Ammaiyar dancing her way to Kailasa. Eventually, he composed varnams and some 150 kritis of many kinds.
Their harikatha troupe was a family affair — with Pillai (harmonium), Swaminathan (violin) and daughter Sivaranjani (mridangam).
Occasionally, guru Ramaiyar played the harmonium which needed only a shift in instruments for the others, as they could play several. “I hated jokes and banter. But my husband would say, ‘Unless you smile, the audience won’t enjoy your performance.’ So I would try to make it lively by getting the kids playing in the sand upfront to sing and recite with me.”
Pillai was a workaholic. He was equal to anything, even repairing Kunnakkudi Vaidyanathan’s violin when the man came for a concert to Suchindram. “He didn’t look to others for help, he did it all himself.”
A surprising fact is that Pillai was influenced by poet Jiva and the communist ideologies to write public-spirited verses. Sornammal’s old students and colleagues remember her husband’s vibrant songs composed for her school’s many functions. “You can’t get that quality anymore. Now it is all film tunes...”
Swaminathan continues the tale. “My biodata is simply that my father was my guru. No direct training. I listened to his music, and his teaching others.” Swaminathan joined a bank in Madras. But he could not shrug off the music. He tried to improve, on his own, just for himself.
Musically gifted
The birth of musically gifted Subbulakshmi quickened past dreams. Transferred to New Delhi, he found himself teaching again, and playing for the dance.
The little girl attended those dance shows, and listened only to the orchestra. Her vocal lessons began with O.V.Subramanian. The father monitored her progress, and taught her the violin.
Swaminathan evolved his own teaching methods. Everyday, Subbulakshmi and sister Swarnalatha, had to accompany on the violin, radio concerts of Carnatic or Hindustani. They listened, through the day, to the concerts he recorded. They had to focus on M.S.Gopalakrishnan’s alapana, Lalgudi Jayaraman’s kriti, T.N.Krishnan’s sruti; he insisted the girls must have them all. A severe critic, he pointed out lapses, blemishes, and anything less than the best.
“Perfection is not something to be achieved for a day,” he said. “It is a life-long quest. No substitute for relentless practice.”
Soon, Subbulakshmi was playing for frontline dancers Leela Samson, Swapnasundari, Raja and Radha Reddy. With her, and for her, Swaminathan began to perform once again, but stopped when Swarnalatha was ready to duet.
Initially, she was not tractable material. “I gave up hopes. I tell Swarna to play for 10 hours, she plays for four!” he grumbles, adding, “Now she is very attentive.”
Swaminathan has his favourite convictions. “Follow the voice, the way the song goes, and you can’t go wrong. Don’t play sangatis that can’t be vocally sung. Gimmicks detract, distract. If you don’t know sahitya, you can’t get bhava. Don’t show off, your music must be understood by everyone. Cultivate discrimination, taste. Clarity in minute things is the key.”
Why hasn’t he shaped other students as good as his daughters? “They don’t practise. That’s why. I can’t monitor them as I do my girls.”
The Akkarai sisters take advanced lessons from P.S.Narayanaswami and Chitraveena Ravikiran. Swaminathan dreams of his daughters turning vocalists. Then they will reclaim fully their vocal and violin heritage from grandfather Sivasubrahmanya Pillai.
Grandmother Sornammal has the last word. “Because I married a man like him, these girls have the right atmosphere. How happy my husband would have been to see his grand daughters following his passion!”
(A fortnightly spotlight on music gurus, musicologists and representatives of different schools who have enriched Carnatic music.)
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