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Photo: R. Shivaji Rao.

Realising aspirations: Rukmani Ramani

“Appa was everything to me, my whole life centred around him when he was alive. My ambition is to make the Sivan Arts Academy I’ve launched in his name a byword for quality and class,” begins Rukmini Ramani, youngest daughter of musician-composer Papanasam Sivan, hailed as Tamil Tyagayya.

Like all children, Rukku took her father for granted, though she enjoyed travelling with him, observing him compose music for films, teach the frontline musicians of the day, or entertain visitors like D.K.Pattammal, Turaiyur Rajagopala Sharma, Maruthuvakudi Gopu, Radha-Jayalakshmi, Lalgudi Jayaraman and so on. She saw M.K.Thiagaraja Bhagavatar learning from her father, and getting even virutthams corrected for recording.

“At the saptasthana bhajanai in Tiruvaiyaru, I’d wonder what’s so special about him to make people so reverent, invite him to their homes and do paadapuja. If he was low in funds people would come to his help. Rukmini Devi would call him to Kalakshetra, M.S. and Sadasivam would ensure his needs were met.” She also saw people shedding tears when he sang viruttham and bhajanai. Only after marriage at 15, did the girl realise her father’s greatness.

Learning from Sivan and absorbing the music ringing in the house, sweet-voiced Rukku acquired a repertoire of formidable variety. School going ended with marriage. But under the pretence of helping her brother-in-law, a determined Rukmini secretly studied and took her SSLC examination. “He failed, I passed!” she laughs. Years later, she went on to finish her M.A and M.Ed.

Fortunately, her orthodox in-laws did not object to her joining the Central Music College. “At the entrance exam I confessed that I didn’t know swara singing and sang alapana by converting Appa’s Devi Minalochani into akaram!”

College gave exposure to great gurus and their styles — Budalur Krishnamurti Sastrigal, T. Brinda, Swaminatha Pillai, Mayavaram Krishna Iyer. “Ramapriya tomorrow,” Brinda would warn. The girl would rush home and get father or father’s disciple to teach her its scale and format. “Somehow I would sing it the next day.”

Learning to notate music there enabled Rukmini to preserve her father’s work. “He’d scribble songs anywhere. So much was lost before I took the responsibility of notating them.” Sivan would mention ideas and Rukku converted them into letters and speeches.

She accompanied him to film studios and the homes of vidwans, to write down and sing the music he composed for them, even teach on occasion. When Rukku was offered a chance to sing in films, the father, though himself a singer and composer in the Talkies, refused in horror.

For the last six years of Sivan’s life, Rukmini stayed in the outhouse of his dwelling.

“Grandfather came first, not us. He had only to call ‘Rukku!’ Amma would drop everything and run,” laughs vocalist son Ashok Ramani. Rukmini still grieves for not having been born earlier, to have learnt more, served more. “I consciously stopped myself from composing songs as I feared that self absorption might prevent total focus on my father. This happened with my talented sister Neela.”

Rukmini’s first job as music teacher was at Kalakshetra, and Sri Seva Mandir. A joyful decade followed at Sarada Vidyalaya where she was encouraged to compose for dance dramas and special music programmes for festivals and inter-school competitions. “I was asked to compose for a science exhibition too!” she laughs. One method of keeping children in order was to have them sing during the visits of swamijis from the Ramakrishna Math. “And my students sang with vigour and fervour,” she says with pride.

Appointed to teach at the Government Music College where she had studied, Rukmini found herself appreciated by Principal Bhanumati, who had learnt and sung Sivan’s songs in her films. Once, after monitoring Rukmini’s class, she even told the students, “You are lucky to have so fine a teacher.” But Rukmini was disillusioned by jingoistic politics dictating the syllabus.

Luckily, with friend S. Rajeswari’s contacts in the dance world, she began to compose music for dance dramas like Srinivasa Kalyanam and Meenakshi Kalyanam. Deputed by the ICCR to teach in Mauritius, Rukmani enjoyed four years of success in expanding training programmes.

Today, Rukmini Ramani’s life is packed with musical activities — teaching in the four branches of her Sivan Academy, conducting music festivals, propagating her father’s work, editing and publishing his songs with notation.

She has also made a name for herself as a composer, of kritis and operas, with ‘Sivakumari’ as her chosen mudra. Her kritis, including pancharatnams on Kapaliswarar and Tiruvarur, are sung by musicians like Sudha Ragunathan and Gayathri Girish, while leading dancers dance to her words and tunes.

Any unfulfilled dreams? Rukmini Ramani’s answer is unexpected, and comes with a twinkle, “I want to compose and direct songs soaked in Carnatic music for at least a single film. Another tribute to my father.”

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