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.