Saturday, March 31, 2012 – Cheating death and…more on music

Let me attempt to now narrate matters that involved me personally involvement; some good, some bad, some downright ugly. I hope these write-ups interest you enough; I for now believe that words, and words alone build a mosaic of interesting and readable material.

I now narrate how men turn to become beasts, and act violently and senselessly. This happened in Calcutta during the second communal riots. On Direct Action Day of August 16, 1946, under the Surawardy regime, Calcutta became the playground for anti-social elements to kill, plunder and loot. The Statesman of Calcutta called it “The Great Calcutta Killing”. The mob, which was marching from Howrah Maidan towards the city, crossing the Howrah Bridge, took law into their own hands and carried out a mass murder. Citizens were saved from this communal carnage only on the third day, due to the valor and courage displayed by the Sikh and Bihari community, amounting to self-sacrifice. They retaliated by silencing those who started the trouble.

During those days, I spent my evening leisure hours visiting the post-graduate hostel of the University Science College of Calcutta near Sealdah, where one of my cousins and several friends lived. They used to delight in my company and I would join them for a brisk hour of basketball or volleyball. Sweaty and foul-smelling after the game, I would head back to my room in Central Avenue for a hurried shower, then join my roommates for a chat, have dinner, and sleep off. My morning shift duty @6am involved repairing and maintaining steam locomotives at Calcutta Port Commissioners at Garden Reach workshop, my temporary job then.

One of those days, after the usual round of volleyball at the PG Hostel, walking along Mirzapur Street towards College Square. I suddenly realized that a person was suspiciously following me, with dagger drawn. His intention was pure and simple – to kill me. The second communal riots in Calcutta were on, and anti-social elements were on the prowl for murder and loot. Profusely sweating, I increased my pace. I heard someone shouting out to me that curfew was imposed and that I had to take cover. As I hurried ahead, with the killer following me, I noticed the familiar Sangu Valley Tea Restaurant in front of me. That restaurant saved me - rushed in, even as the manager, who knew me, was reprimanding me for being straying out. Several hours later, I took courage to leave the restaurant when my friend provided me with an escort to reach me home. It still haunts me when I think of this incidence.

I somehow am unable to stay away from the subject of music. I made a gross mistake by omitting the name of Karaikudi Brothers, particularly, Sambasiva Iyer, famous for his veena playing. Similarly, I omitted the name of the legendary figures connected with Katha Kalakshebam whose names to this day are remembered in a nostalgic manner. From Harikesanallur (a village in Tirunelveli), one of the poorest of the poor Tamil Brahmin boys left his homestead to eke out a living. Gifted that he was with a sweet and melodious voice, and unmindful of the presence of the Royal family of Mysore, he was apparently singing in front of the deity of Chamundeswari, a temple near Mysore city. Surprisingly, the Maharajah picked him up, gave him shelter, and provided him the right guidance for him to emerge as a famous exponent of katha-kalakshebam. He became a giant among musicians, and strolled the music world with unmatched excellence. He is none other than Harikesanallur Muthaiah Bhagavathar. In addition to kalakshebam, he was a great composer of music. His krithis in their form and content are popular to this day and his compositions have a permanent place in Carnatic music. He was feted by all the Maharajahs of the south. Well dressed in the royal suit presented by the Maharajahs with a matchless zari turban crowning his head, and French perfume profusely sprayed on his body and attire, he epitomized in real life, the phrase “from rags to riches”.

The other “kalakshebam” personality I missed mentioning was Mangudi Chidambara Bhagavathar, who hailed from a village called Mangudi in Tanjore district. He came from a rich Smartha Brahmin stock of Vaathima subsect. Those days, Tanjore vaathimans were fabulously rich, philanthropic, and patrons of fine arts. They were noted to entertain one and all, both at the conclusion of concerts, and during weddings in their community with sumptuous and tasty feasts (“morattu saapadu”).

Chidambara Bhagavathar was a portly figure requiring special seating arrangements. This heavy built person however performed his kalakshebam standing on his feet for two to three hours, thus showing his respect and reverence to the almighty whose name he invoked several hundred times during the course of his performance. He was famed for his performance of “Gajendra Moksham”, and “Kuchela Upakyanam”, two of the most famous episodes in the Bhagavatham.

Bhagavatham teaches men to be law-abiding, honest, humble, and helpful to others. It inspires people to go forward and help tide crisis-situation through voluntary service. Bhagavatham exhorts one and all to be active and equal partners in the emancipation of suffering humanity.

When I wrote about Carnatic music, I forgot to focus the readers’ attention to the role the “Music Trinity”, Saint Thyagaraja, Muthusamy Dikshithar, Syama Sastrigal played. All the three were born under the shadows of Thiruvaroor Thyagaraja Temple, where the presiding deities were Easwaran Lord Thyagaraja Swami sametha Kamalambika, alias, Balatripurasundari. Incidentally, they were contemporaries. There could be no Carnatic music without such celebrated, prolific, and path-breaking music composers. They were preceded by a century or more, by great men like Purandaradasa, Oothukadu Venkata Subbarayar, and other “dasarvals”. The whole galaxy of shining personalities like Patnam Subramania Iyer, Subbaraya Dikshithar, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar, Neelakanta Sivan, Papanasam Sivan, Swati Thirunaal, Achutadasan, Koteeswara Iyer, Gopalakrishna Bharathy and a good many more, illuminated the arena of Carnatic classical music. 

Apart from these great vocalists and vaakiyakaaras, the contribution of instrumentalists like Thirukodikaaval Krishna Iyer, Malakottai Govindaswamy Pillai, Veenai Dhanammal, Mysore T Chowdiah, Kumbakonam Rajamanickam Pillai, Papa K S Venkataramaiah, Lalgudi G Jayaraman, T N Krishnan, M S Gopalakrishnan, M Chandrasekaran, L Subramaniam, V V Subramaniam, Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, etc. should not be overlooked. Palladam Sanjeeva Rao, the one and only Mali (T R Mahalingam), and Tirupambaram Swaminathan were great flautists. Nadaswara Chakravarty T N Rajaratnam Pillai was a class by himself, far above his contemporaries Semponnar Thiruveezhimalai, Keeranur Groups, Veerasamy Pillai, Karaikuruchi Arunachalam, Namagiri Petai Krishnan, Chinnamoulana Saheb, the Guntur based ustads and vidwans. Mrindangists Pudukottai Dakshinamoorthy Pillai, Palghat Mani Iyer, Palani Subramaniya Pillai..the list can be extended – they were great names in the realm of percussion instruments. There were a good many top vocalists and instrumentalists like Nedanuri Krishnamoorthy, Olotti Venkateswaralu, Dr Pinakapani, Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu from Andhra Pradesh. Kerala and Karnataka did not lag behind in the production of noted vocalists and instrumentalists.

The December music festival in Chennai drew artistes from all the four South Indian states and Hindustani Classical music artistes were presented to South Indian audiences. Slowly, appreciation for Hindustani Classical music is on the rise in the south. 

Artistes like Gayanapadu, Kirtanapadu, Saraswatibai, were famous in the field of sangeetha katha-kalakshebams, mixing melodious music with powerful story-telling. In this category, mention can be made of Thiruvaiyaru Annaswamy Bhagavathar, Srirangam Sadagopachari, Embaar Vijayaraghavachari, T S Balakrishna Sastrigal, and Kripanandha Vaariyar - all of them, legions in this field. We have now a dozen or more exponents of katha-kalakshebams.

The aforesaid branches of entertainment had a lot of Maharashtrian influence since the Tanjore-based Marathi ruling dynasty like Maharaja Sarabhoji were great patrons of art and music, literature, and their contribution stood the test of time and survives to this day. The royal patronage from the princely states of Mysore, Travancore, Cochin, and Pudukottai cannot go unmentioned. As fine arts flourished under their benign rule, many of our great singers were made “aasthana vidwan” by these states. Sri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer was a beneficiary of the ruler of the erstwhile state of Travancore> The Swati Tirunaal Music Academy of Thiruvananthapuram is standing testimony to the research and development of fine arts. Even today, the academy is an active body.

I would like to utilize this opportunity to draw the attention of the discriminating public that certain codes of conduct and self-discipline is called for, when we go to hear and appreciate music. Punctuality, avoidance of applause to each and every sahitya exposition, avoiding noise pollution, walking-in and walking-out in the midst of thaniavarthanam, disturbing and distracting the concentration of listeners, and the abrupt dispersal of the listeners before the completion of the mangalam songs. Busybodies can relax at home and utilize their many gadgets to enjoy music. Inconsiderate people should not deny the many, the thrill of hearing live concerts. It is not good adult behavior. We should know that our kutcheris normally start with a varnam, and concludes with the mangalam. Our music teaches humility (simple life and high thinking). Each for all and all for each can be a good concept.

We should be very thankful to the print media that covers, every week, events connected to classical music and dance. Electronic mediums like TV should increase time slots to cover classical Carnatic music and dance.

At the Mylapore Sai Samaj, I vividly remember Pudukottai Gopalakrishna Bhagavathar who evolved a “paddati” (system) for conducting the divyanama sangeetham with just a dozen or slightly more active participants. Unmindful of physical and mental fatigue, he and his group were on their feet chanting slokas, singing famous songs, moving and dancing to set foot movements, keeping us all glued. Gopalakrishna Bhagavathar, who took center-stage, was possibly in his seventies at that time. It was a unique experience watching Gopalakrishna Bhagavathar conducting divyanama sangeetham right from “unjavarthi” up to “anjaneya utsavam). Apart from thyagaraja krithis and tamil songs of nayanmaars and alvaars, there were compositions of Purandaradasa, Narayana Theerthar, and Jayadeva Ashtapathi.

Needamangalam Krishnamurthy Bhagavathar of Oothukadu Venkata Subbaiyer lineage popularized (as) Krishnagaanam. These famous songs find place both in Carnatic music and in bharatanatyam.

While in Madras during the late ‘30s and ‘40s of the last century, I had to cover long distances to attend the sabha kutcheris, mostly by passenger buses and electric trains, and of course, every once in a while, by my own god-given power of my limbs. The venues were mostly school premises or open grounds with improvised “keethu kottagai”, more commonly known as pandals, with no importance given to acoustics. A few hundreds get interested in attending these weekend concerts. It was always a three to five hour concert by eminent vidwans, with equally famous violinists and mridangists, and with ganjira and ghatams introduced occasionally, thus making it into a full “peria jamai” kutcheri. Sitting through these music programs with or without mike facilities for amplification was an enthralling experience. Today, kutcheris are cut down to two hours, with an occasional half hour extension. Audience too are mostly of advanced age, many with physical disabilities, and with little patience or capability to sit for long hours. I felt sad leaving the venue when the concert concluded with the mangalam song rendered in saurashtra and madhyamavati ragas. These melodious songs continued to ring in my ears for several days. There were days when I was in my classroom, instead of being attentive during the lectures, I would be ruminating over the soul-stirring and majestic music that artistes like Ariyakudi, Semmangudi, Maharajapuram (Sangeetha Bhupathi Viswanatha Iyer), Alathur, GNB, Madurai Mani, Sembai rendered.

Carnatic music has hundreds of ragas, that bring forth, within the limits of aarohana-avarohana, such melodies that, to the listener, virtually acts as an experience difficult to evaluate. Ragas have the power to bring out the navarasabhava, lifting you without your awareness, to a different physical and mental plane. Each raga is special, with its specific characteristic, and with seventy-two melakarta ragas conceived by those gifted composers, it cannot but survive for ages to come. Our music is ‘saaswatham’, i.e., permanent like our Vedas. I have heard at Saundarya Mahal of Govindappa Nayakan Street, Park Town, a kutcheri with two violinists and two mrindangists accompanying the vocalist. The concert lasted four hours; vocalist Kancheepuram Naina Pillai (Guru of Chittoor Subramanya Pillai, Paapa, K S Venkataramaiah, D K Pattammal, to name a few) was a doyen in the Carnatic sangeetha ulagham (world). I have seen the whole audience stand up as one man to greet such great vidwans as they got on to the podium to render divine music. This alone verily illustrates how these vidwans could command spontaneous approbation from the listening public. 

Those days, why, even now, there are very few sabhas with auditoriums in the city. During the December music season, the Music Academy sadhas had daily music concerts, and occasional dance recitals, that were held within the Senate Hall on the Marina. Even today, except for the Music Academy and Narada Gana Sabha, I cannot visualize other sabha venues deserving favorable rating in terms of seating comfort, rest rooms, and acoustics. The city of Madras needs at least half a dozen modern auditoriums with perfect, in-built acoustic systems. May I appeal to the enterprising corporate world to sportingly come forward and invest in building world-class concert halls, and recover their huge investments by commercially exploiting over a reasonable time frame. “Sada” is eighty-six, neither so mobile nor so young to muster money and muscle, i.e., human resources (muscle power here has nothing to do with its typical connotation of goondaism). Chennai should have by now a few Albert or Carnegie Halls of world repute. We Indians have all the talent, skills, and wherewithal to bring about miracles.

When I speak of auditoriums in the city, we should also think of making the city beautiful. We should not delay in transforming one of the longest beaches in the world, at the least the Marina stretch, to equal in beauty and grandeur, to the one and only Rio De Janiero beach in Brazil. The present seafront of Chennai is an eyesore, and requires immediate steps to make it look like paradise. To make this happen, we can copy much from the Singapore administration. Politicians of today’s caliber should step back from any misadventure and leave the job to the private sector of proven capability, and also seek, if need be, overseas help in this great effort.

Now, I will get into my association with Hindustani classical music. Lord Krishna (my janma nakshatiram is Rohini, like Lord Krishna) had Rukmini-Satyabhama as his consorts and to me, I got involved with both Carnatic and Hindustani classical music as my consorts. My coverage of Hindustani music with names like Ustad Allaudin Khan, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Ustad Amir Khan, Ustad Vilayat Khan, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pannalal Ghosh, Narayanrao Vyas, Vinayak Rao Patwardhan, Heerabai Barodekar, Pandit D V Paluskar, Pandit Ravi Shankar – a long, long list indeed of illustrious performers of Hindustani music. Yes, I will try to do justice and the impact Hindustani music had on me. It was Calcutta that attracted my attention for Hindustani music. It was preceded by no less a person than K S Natarajan, who happened to be my brother and who graduated from BHU in 1942. While on holiday, he used to hum and sing ragas of Hindustani music, similar to our Bhairavi, Mohanam, Hamsanandi, Subha-panthuvarali, Sindhu Bhairavi, but with a style and form exclusively reflecting the style and form of Hindustani classical mode. We, his siblings, particularly my immediate elder sister, Dr Kamala Ramakrishnan (now in her nineties and very much alive, surviving her late husband Dr S Ramakrishnan, a scholar in English and Tamil Literature) drew inspiration from our brother Natarajan. For a while, I was one of the many secretaries of Tarun Sangeet Sammelan of Calcutta, promoting Hindustani music utilizing the Chittaranjan Avenue located Mahajati Sadan, Rabindra Sadan near Chowringhee, and Singhi Park of South Calcutta. I have shaken hands with almost all popular ustads and pandits of the ‘40s and ‘50s of the previous century.

Since Calcutta Maidan attracted more of my attention, with my established contacts mostly amongst soccer players, a few cricketers, and hockey stars, I could not provide necessary attention as an office bearer of the Sangeet Sabha. I retired to the galleries to watch sports events and hear music concerts. 

I forget to mention that some of the unforgettable kutcheris that lingers in my ears were those Kalyana kutcheris that I attended with invitations, or without valid entry pass. These were scores like me, for love of music, braved entry to hear kalyana kutcheris. I used to sport an angavastram to make myself look like an adult. Hearing such concerts mostly in the marriages of the very rich were popular singers like GNB, MS, Madurai Mani, Semmangudi, Musiri, provided feast to our ears. It cannot go unmentioned that attending such kalyana kutcheris earned us a bonus point also. Can you readily guess what that bonus point was? Don’t trouble yourself – it is the kalyana saapadu that is feast to satisfy our appetite. It was food of a very high standard, where the feasting lasted many pandhis (batches). I can even recapitulate some sites like Sri P R Sundaram Iyer’s residence (now Amrutanjan at Luz, Mylapore). Sri Sundaram Iyer was a judge of the Madras High Court, a philanthropist, and a great patron of the arts. His nephews were equally well known, who are three brothers – P L Sundaresan of the Hindu, Sports & Pastime, and SportStar, Late Sri Venkataraman (father of cricketers V Sivaramakrishnan and V Ramanarayanan), and Late N Pattabhiraman, a retired UN official in New York and later promoter of the famous monthly magazine “Shruthi”, devoted to classical music and dance.

I am The Great Collector. Don’t ask me what of? Well… it is a huge variety of objects, curios, artefacts – both Indian and foreign, Ganesha images of any material, elephants of varied dimension made of wood or stone, well padded diaries, and a hundred other items of interest. I shed tears when I heard the famous “Moore Market”, stone’s throw from Madras Central Station was destroyed by fire. Till date, it has not been reckoned whether it was a natural disaster, or engineered with diabolical motives by vested interests. I can of course boast that the Rs 2/- per day allowance my father gave me, helped me build a personal library of several hundred books which I acquired from select booksellers of erstwhile Moore Market. Ask me about any leading authors’ works, and chances are I have it in my library.

Three of us friends pooled our resources to see movies – almost always English movies. And if you asked me about the actors, actresses and the titles of those movies, my answers would possibly astound film critics with the statistics I could provide. Minerva of Broadway, Casino, Elphinstone, Roxy, and Globe were the most frequented theatres of my time in Chennai. You may wonder how a student could enjoy 250-300 classic films of Hollywood and British origin, when he is seldom free. Yes, my engineering workshop classes came in very handy, with the co-operation and assistance of the duty master and foreman. We in turn, took good care of his frugal demands and kept him in good humor. I have in my possession, a whole set of photo albums of celebrated stars of the silver screen. Occasionally, even today, I pick up some of these albums, and get engrossed admiring the facial expressions of immortal souls that graced those movies of high drama and performance. I fondly reminisce the days of Paul Muni, Leslie Howard, Charles Boyer, Gary Cooper, Charlie Chaplin, Eddy Cantor, Clark Gable, Walter Pidgeon, Ronald Coleman, Douglas Fairbanks, Gregory Peck, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Paul Robson, and Humphrey Bogart, to name a few; the list of course is never ending. Similarly, a whole battalion of heroines including Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh, Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Catherine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman can never be forgotten. Gone With The Wind, with two intermissions, is in my mind’s eye, where Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, and Olivia De Havilland played stellar roles. What a movie it was, what acting, and what settings! Great indeed were the moments we friends spent enjoying such movies. It was capable of lifting us to a different and higher plane of introspection. Believe me, I do not decry Indian movies; I respect some of them approaching the standard of foreign films, but the numbers were deplorably low and were no match to what Hollywood counterparts could offer. More on the subject of films would be penned in this narration later on. How much of my writings would invoke interest is to be left safely to the readers’ judgment. 

The conveyance we used to reach the entertainment centers were partially availing of suburban electric train service to the nearest point followed by what we used to call “Natraja service” aka trekking. Mind you, hungry as we all would be, we had reserve funds for a cup of hot tea during intervals. On the way back home, we never denied ourselves refreshments in the form of a plain dosa and half a cup of enervating coffee at Udipi Café at the round-thana on Mount Road. You have to believe me when I say that you could satisfy your appetite for 2 ½ annas (15 paise by today’s measure) for what we term as tiffin (and a whole sumptuous meal cost only six annas, ie, thirty six paise).  Where am I? No day dreaming… I am right here in Madras of the late ‘30s and ‘40s.

Around September ’47, I bade adieu to Madras by boarding the Howrah Mail destined to Calcutta, seeking greener pastures. Job-hunting is a chapter in one’s history, with its own ups and downs. Well, that chapter has to wait. 

For the present, I have to cover a chapter reserved for relatives, made up of periappa, chittappa, periamma, chitti, mama, mami and their offsprings. What a crowd they all go to constitute, scattered as they were, all over within the Madras Presidency and beyond. We had some who had crossed the seas and become fabulously rich. 

My father gave us comforts that today’s money could not buy. For a medical doctor in yonder Burma, to take care of me and my seven siblings, and fund his dependent relatives in India, it was not much effort, as his salary and perks were adequate enough. He enjoyed a furlough to visit India once in two years. All these were possible as the purchasing power of the rupee during my father’s professional days was significantly higher than what it is today. A whole set of relatives had visited Burma as father’s guests and my dad had met the entire expenses. Deck passengers on steamships had to pay a paltry eighteen rupees to travel two days from Madras to Rangoon; so cheap it was that I remember having traveled from Madras to Tiruchy on a two-rupee rail ticket. Nowadays, beggars refuse small denomination as alms, as cost of living has spiraled upwards.

Lifestyles are changing, and the nation’s economy is still beset with problems aplenty. The disparity between haves and have-nots today looks unbridgeable, and this aspect deserves corrective methods by the powers that are ruling the roost. Power breeds corruption, and ultimately power verily assumes self-destructive behavior patterns.

To travel almost thirty-six hours in a train that shifts your body from Madras to Calcutta with a valid Rs 18/- ticket is unbelievable today, considering the distance. My highly qualified teachers, with salaries around Rs 100/- a month lived comfortably without incurring debts, and could support their families of six or more persons. Their extra income at best came through tuitions. They were free from bribery and nepotism. They were dedicated practitioners, promoting education of a high standard. My class teacher, Sreeman Srinivasacharyar who lived to hit a century, passed away recently; I was one of his favorites. His nephew, a qualified chartered accountant, Sreeman Velukudi Krishnan has taken to religious discourses, enriching our lives with sublime thoughts. Today, Velukudi is a much sought out person for upanyasams. I was blessed to have class and school mates like Late General Sundarji, Chartered Accountant Late N C Krishnan, well known public figure Yagya Raman of Krishna Gana Sabha fame, and good many who later climbed the ladder to reach dizzy heights in their respective professional career. “Sada”, ie me, is still a multi-faceted character, who moved amongst the brightest and dullest class-fellows. It was the dullest in the class who happened to be talented soccer, hockey, and basketball players. I learnt a lot from the many Dorais, Vincents, Bhaskarans, Babus, and Nainis, who helped me sharpen my skills and raise my playing standards. I was in touch with this lot for many years; I may not be wrong with my conjecture that 90% of my contemporaries have departed from their earthly abode. I am hell bent in following my class teacher, Late Srinivasacharya, by surmounting the hundred-year hurdle. God, in all HIS mercy, should grant me a century of living under the benign sun; dreams are sometimes realized.

I will now touch another most favorite pastime of mine - sharing and listening to music. Music has the power to cure your ailing body and depressed mind. Music, I assert is divine, is a great leveler, and helps you maintain your equilibrium. You might be surprised to hear that there was music reverberating within the four walls of our home at all times. The sound vibrations drew me closer and closer to music and occasionally indulged me to sing all by myself. I am not a mean performer of vocal Carnatic music, and of some catchy light music sung by the likes of MS, MKT, DD, DKP, NCV, and TRM. They popularized music to a level where even hand-rickshaw pullers used to freely sing those songs, as well as the original singers. Music has magnetic powers and to the exception of Aurangazeb the despot, the melody that music unfolds mesmerizes the entire humanity. I was witness to the advent of audio technology – the gramophone, and later, the radio. Out of sheer curiosity, we used to peep into the gramophone to check if there was a real human being, invisible to our eyes, “singing”. We elementary school kids could never fathom the intricacies of science and technology; we had to believe our elders.

Our elders used to advise us to be cautious while meandering out, drumming into our ears that ghosts were prowling around tamarind trees. We never cultivated the power of questioning our elders. We never had an identity of our own. We were hero worshippers, and fanatic followers of certain dogmas, and of of dos and don’ts. 

When I was three years old, I was told that I evinced a keen interest in music. My elder siblings had music classes at home. The music teacher with his tuft, known as “Kudumi”, took centre-stage in the main hall, using the harmonium as a shruti; sitting a few yards away in one corner, I used to hear the fine tuned voice of the teacher offering melodious music. My sisters would follow the teacher, and would shout their hearts out, almost unbearably. Later on, my sisters, through voice culture, developed a considerable music repertoire. During the Navarathri season, i.e., dolls display, named as “Navarathri Golu”, my sisters were much sought after for their music renderings. So started my entry into the music world as an audience, to hear the great masters in both vocal and instrumental. The list of musicians I heard would go to make a long list. Each one of them had the “gurukulavaasam”, learning music from the vidwans. The gurus taught their disciples for a very short while in the evenings, and fully engaged them for the rest of the day to do domestic work - washing, cleaning, cattle-feeding, running around fetching vegetables and provisions, etc. It was non-stop, hectic work, demanded by the vidwans’ wives. The shisyas eventually, free from the gurus’, followed in the footsteps of their gurus, taking in disciples, and got them to do the same errands they had been carrying out earlier. Quite literally, most of the shisyas were self-taught to become famous singers.

August 3^rd in the year 1926 according to our south indian panchangam is called Akshaya Varusham, considered very prosperous. This ‘poorvangam’, i.e., introductory remarks, goes to establish the birth of this scriptwriter, emerging into this wonderful, somewhat wicked world. The ‘namakaranam’, i.e., naming ceremony, gave me the name “Sadasivan”, driven by my father’s implicit faith in Sadasiva-Brahmendral, whose arishtanam at Neroor, located near Karur, draws as a pilgrim center, large crowds all through the seasons. Sadasiv-Brihmendral happens to have been the Sankaracharya of both Sarada Peetham of Sringeri and the Kamakoti Peetham of Kancheevaram; he was a much revered avadhoota swamigal, and in Carnatic music concerts, many of his compositions find prominent place espousing the Vedanta philosophy. He was supposed to have carried out many miracles.

I was born in Mylapore, a popular section of Chennai, then known as Madras, with residence at Kaarunyeshwar Koil Street, walking distance from the famed San Thome beach, a seafront where the Basilica of St. Thomas is located. This beautiful planet of ours saw yet another addition to global citizenry.

I am now known as K S Sadasivan; the elongated name is Kadayampatti Subramanya Sadasivan, a Smartha Vadadeshathu Vadamal of Bharathwaja gothram. I am proud to associate myself with the one and only Rajaji (Sri Rajagopalachari) and Dharmapuri Subbarayar, a well known ‘vaakkaya kaara’ of famed jaavalis (Carnatic music); we all have Salem connections. 

My father, Subramaniya Iyer was in one of the earliest batches of Stanley Medical School (Rayapuram Medical School) with Dr. T S S Rajan and the likes as his classmates. Myy dad shared a room with many others on Mint Street (Thanga Salai) for a monthly rental of Rs 10/- and a paati-ammal (a grand old lady) nearby was so pleased with Rs 5/- per head per month to cater for breakfast and dinner. Can we in our next seven births even dream of living conditions so cheap that meets our basic human needs? My father took to education forsaking the comforts of rich, rural peasantry class (mirazdaars); bold and courageous he was to opt out of the comforts of his village life at Kadayampatti to reach distant Trivandrum (now Tiruvananthapuram in Kerala) in pursuit of an early scholastic career, completing his FA (Fellow of Arts, equivalent to present day Class XII), for eligibility to a college course. Those days, there were scores of philanthropists that took good care of people like my father. Temples too had community kitchens to feed the multitudes of away-from-home-humanity. The ‘oothuporais’ of Kerala rendered yeoman service in this direction with free food distribution, day in and day out. The display of such human spirit in such exemplary form is hard to find these days; those were days perhaps, where the idea of sharing played a more dominant role in community life. Religious sentiments were confined within permissible parameters and inter and intra faith sensibilities never generated vile and vulgar passions. The period covering my father’s prosecution of school and college life was during the first two decades of twentieth century. That sums up how my father availed of the scholarship offered by the Government of Burma to do medicine (Allopathy) on condition that, on completion of medical studies, he would sign a bond to serve in Burma in the Burma Medical Service. After thirty two years in the medical profession, exclusively within the boundaries of Burma (now Myanmar), and a few years on deputation to Penang (another British Colony), he retired in 1939, to settle down in his own conceived layout of a bungalow in T Nagar, which was getting developed as an upper middle-class residential complex. T Nagar was well-planned, with Panagal park as the neighborhood center, with roads and streets, shopping areas, parks, schools, health centers, and places of worship, all laid out to answer to the community’s needs. Once a large sheet of water, which in tamil is called ‘A-ree’ (lake), T Nagar today can be rightfully considered a modern neighborhood, central to all human activities of Chennai. My goody goody Madras assuming a new name and color as Chennai is quite jarring to my ears. To me, old names spell magic and grandeur; old is gold, and gold always glitters and is enduring.

Let me digress here a bit to tell you, my beloved readers, that my narration neither follows a chronological pattern nor what I write is out of my memory, which has not faded even a wee bit. Mind you, I am running eighty-six, with faculties functioning more or less normally. I would be covering a whole gamut of subjects comprehensively, including classical Indian music, which is my first love, and without ignoring the lilting light variety of music, mostly of yesteryears. On sports, I would be dealing with cricket, hockey, and basketball, where ‘Sada’, as I was known by, was a popular guy. Lawn tennis, table tennis (ping-pong is the name we used those days), athletics, billiards and snooker, the exhilarating game played on a green top table would all find place in my narration.

English literature attracted my attention from my school days, and to this ripe old age, my interest in English literature, both fiction and non-fiction has not diminished. My appreciation of English literature, not excluding the translated edition of non-English authors and writers would be widely covered as they all have left an everlasting impact in my evaluation of life and times.