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In the footsteps of Mani Iyer

Insight: on Palghat Mani Iyer; right, R. Krishnamoorthy.

Collecting, preserving and popularising Carnatic music turned into such an overpowering passion that R. Krishnamoorthy willingly gave up his penchant for writing and painting.

In the wall-to-wall cupboards in one of the rooms in his house he has a huge collection of audio recordings of live concerts, all marked and catalogued. Strewn around are spools, gramophone records and a large number of them waiting to be sorted and listed. The collection keeps growing by the day.

‘Kedaram,’ an admirer’s travel through a concert by M. D. Ramanathan was his first novel. An avid admirer of MDR, Krishnamoorthy, who has been organising an annual concert in this singer’s memory, feels that the best thing about MDR was his spontaneity, especially in the manner in which he explored the nuances of a raga.

It is this facet that Krishnamoorthy attempts to capture in this work.

Krishnamoorthy’s latest ‘Sogasuga Mrundagathalamu’ is a definitive biography of the mridangam wizard Palghat Mani Iyer.

“Biographies are generally chronological records, more like news. I have tried to make this like a novel, easily readable. Mani Iyer’s eventful life and the many anecdotes unravel like in a novel. I have not given undue importance to dates. That does not mean I have avoided it altogether. Some of the significant dates, like some of the places find mention. But I have tried to blend them with the mood and flow of the life story,” says the author.

Collecting information was the biggest challenge. It took Krishnamoorthy more than 20 years to finally be ready with enough material for the work.

“The most important source of information was Mani Iyer’s son Rajamani. He had accompanied his father for numerous concerts. It was through him that I got access to Mani Iyer’s diary. This had detailed information on his concerts, venues and those who accompanied him.

“Rajamani and his brother Rajaram gave me invaluable information about Mani Iyer, the musician. I got to know about the mind of the man through his disciples Mavelikara Velukutty Nair and Trivandram Surendran.”

The biography gives a vivid picture of the times, the audiences, the great artistes. Perhaps the most interesting part is the detailed portrait we get of one of the greatest Ganjira player Pudukkottai Dakshinamurthy Pillai.

This work records his on-stage ‘battles’ with Mani Iyer, their mutual admiration and some of their wonderful concerts. The book also has a collection of rare photographs. Krishnamoorthy is now working on a biography of Neyattinkara Vasudevan.

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