Finest tribute
Sir, ‘The Mani magic,’ written by Sriram Venkatkrishnan, (FR-3, dated 13/06/2008), was one of the finest tributes to Madurai Mani Iyer (MMI). I am proud to be the son of ‘Chitti’ Sundararjan of Manikkodi and I was one of the fortunate listeners of Mani Mandapam concerts as a growing child.
MMI was known in his friends’ circle as Gandhi because of his noble qualities as a man. He never used to sing ‘Nidhi Chala Sukama’ as a principle since music was his livelihood.
Chitti was known in the group as Rajaji while a few others were nicknamed after the great Indian Freedom fighterrs.
Madurai Mani Iyer used to sing at the Kapali temple during Navaratri festivals in the 1950s and 1960s. He would start singing ‘Kaana Kan Kodi’ of Papanasam Sivan at 12 midnight and audience would be spellbound and the crowd of rasikas would disperse only after the rendering of mangalam.
Even rickshaw-pullers refused ‘savari’ while Madurai Mani was singing. He was like Sachin Tendulkar of Carnatic Music. It was really a great pleasure to read the excellent piece.
We are not just fans of Madurai Mani Iyer. We want to be identified as fanatics of Madurai Mani Iyer!
S.Venugopalan, Chennai.
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