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Music : December 03, 2000

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Carnatic winds from Mumbai

Gowri Ramnarayan

We know that green card holders have a definite edge over every other brand of bridegrooms. But did you know that Chennai boys have a niche market?

Balamani

"If I want to become a frontline Carnatic musician, I have to have a base in Chennai," the Mumbai Tamil damsel told her parents. "I want to marry someone settled in that city."

Many of us have not thought about the fact that with its considerable South Indian population, Mumbai is bound to be a stronghold of the southern arts, particularly Carnatic music. Take the case of another young girl who made her debut many years ago in the Chennai music season, with a Todi that had the glow, fervour and control of solid training. I was surprised to learn that both she and her guru were residents of Mumbai. Like many others, I had believed that the best grooming in Carnatic music was available only in Chennai.

But though she went on to become a star, today Jayashri retains Bombay only as a prefix to her name. Like the Bombay sisters Saroja-Lalitha before her, or Geetha Raja, Raji Gopalakrishnan, Ranjini and Gayathri who came after, she has shifted to another port beside the eastern sea. Why? The answer throws up several paradoxes.

"Mumbai is a great place for learning Carnatic music," say Ranjini and Gayathri, the third generation Tamil siblings raised in Matunga. These violinists-turned-vocalists are products of the music school run by the most prestigious organisation of its kind in Mumbai, the Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha. "Were we lucky to have a guru like T. S. Krishnaswamy! And a school which provided not just a class, but a whole rich ambience!" They exclaim. "We did not stop with attending our own thrice-a-week sessions but went every day, joined other classes in the six year course, sometimes playing sarali varisai with the first years...

Alamelu Mani

We also learn that their guru's single-minded teaching was at the cost of performance. "From him you learnt not only music, but a whole way of life. He was incredibly patient, never harsh, but expected high standards. Notation had to be written with the utmost neatness. His 'So you didn't practise?' was enough to shame us," the sisters recall. You could see the excellence of the guru in the mature support the girls were able to offer right from the start of their careers.

Visit T. R. Balamani in Chembur, and you will see another guru with the same commitment and high demands. Marriage transposed this trainee from the Central College of Carnatic Music under Musiri Subramania Iyer's tutelage, to Mumbai, which was not a location conducive to a career of performance. But she could share her wealth with seekers, which Balamani has done generously for 40 years now, first at the Bharatiya Fine Arts Society's school, and later in tuitions at home. But let disciple Jayashri describe the scene.

"Balamani Mami had the most non-commercial approach to teaching. My lessons from her were not confined to music, but included a whole approach to life." The two-room flat was always spanking clean. The day's cooking was over by 9.30 a.m., including the noon coffee in the flask, and tiffin for the few students who came straight from office or college, so that the concentration in classes (held in the tidy kitchen) was total. Smiles Jayashri, "That's how I learnt about advance planning and time management."

Eminent vidwans like Nedunuri Krishnamurti, Voleti Venkateshwarlu, Dr. Pinakapani and Govinda Rao, preferred to stay with Balamani Mami when they came to Mumbai, despite the inconveniences of chawl life. Many more came to visit. She would never trouble them with requests to update her repertoire. Why do that when, by the end of their public recitals, she herself notated in her notebook all the songs she wanted to learn, complete with gamakas and anuswaras. Sure enough, the next class would find her students learning those very songs, not as a dry grid of swaras, but with their soul intact. She had copies of the notation for the students as well. Swara singing was taught with stimulating exercises, and pallavis became a fascinating challenge. Naturally, the students did not want to miss a single class. In her home you can see that she commands both respect and love from her disciples.

Hariharan

The other committed teacher in Matunga is Alamelu Mani, who took sole charge of the South Indian School of Music after the untimely death of her husband and guru H.A.S Chellappa in 1963. (The school is closed now and she has fewer tuitions for the more advanced students). Alamelu Mani proved by example that talent honed in Mumbai can hold its own when she stood first among 2000 candidates from all over India in the AIR competition (1954).

"The sudden demise of my husband shattered me, I had no support to turn professional performer. Teaching was the obvious way out," she recalls. At age 28 she was conscious of having slipped back after marriage and household responsibilities. "I had no hold on music." The doyenne T. Brinda helped her to return to the art with lessons during every annual vacation that she spent in Bombay. "Once when she stayed with me, I had the privilege of accompanying her in live and radio concerts. A dream come true!"

But without year-round access to the guru Alamelu Mani had to work mostly on her own. "Cassettes were not common, and when you managed to get radio Chennai you got more splutterings than music!" she laughs. But Mumbai had concerts round the year by the top artists at sabhas like the Shanmukhananda, Bharatiya (Matunga), The Fine Arts Society, (Chembur) or at the South Indian School. "We literally performed tapas to hear Madurai Mani, Ariyakudi or Maharajapuram! We would go to a 6 p.m concert at 4 p.m to get the best seats. True, there were not as many concerts as in Madras, but for that very reason we developed more concentration, absorbency and retention."

The downside was that local artists, however capable, never enjoyed the popularity of the Chennai or Bangalore artist. Performance opportunities were few unless you could establish yourself in Chennai which required the kind of lobbying skills that self effacing artists like Balamani and Alamelu Mani did not possess, or care to develop. Gayathri-Ranjini mention another problem. "In Mumbai you heard only the top artists, rarely the middle or lower rankers. So we had only Lalgudi Jayaramans and T. N. Krishnans to compare our fledgeling efforts with. This could discourage us when we realised how very far we had to go!"

T.A. Hafeez
Aruna Sairam

A Chennai based artist certainly got more chances for this simple reason that access to her/him was easier, an important factor in the initial stages. There are more concerts, not only in the southern city, but in the smaller towns of Tamil Nadu, as is not possible in Maharastra. And in Carnatic music, the Chennai vidwan rides the crest in popularity and prestige.

"You can make a living on a career in classical music if you are Chennai based, not in Mumbai," the young artists tell you. "Every Carnatic musician here survives because he also sings light music of all kinds," explains 23-year-old Krishnan Eashwaran, whose talent I glimpsed as he sang a padam in Mohanam and a javali in Pharaz with guru Alamelu Mani. (Her son Hariharan has of course made a hit in the ghazal-film-light music circuit, a matter of choice). Eashwaran refers to Balamani's disciple Shankar Mahadevan, whose Carnatic music has gained glamour after his chart busting light music recordings. "So you see, Carnatic music itself imposes light music upon us!"

Unlike those Mumbai artists who have opted to move to Chennai for professional reasons, Aruna Sairam remained on the West coast but got instructed by one of the ripest vidwans of Chennai. T. Brinda was an annual vacationer in their Vadala home from where she taught senior disciples. One day the lady told Aruna to join in. For a while, Bombay guru S. Ramachandran monitored her progress. (He tutored Geetha Raja, later to become Aruna's sister-in-law.)

"The Bombay audiences of the 1950s and 1960s were first settlers who brought a keen discernment, passion and even preferences of Thanjavur or Palakkadu styles with them," Aruna explains. "They used to gather in full strength - about 4000 for the open air four-hour concerts with two tanis, held by Bharatiya and Shanmukhananda."

Music was kept alive for the next generation by teachers like Krishna , Bhaskara Bhagavatars and H.A.S. Mani, who taught in the south Indian Matunga-Sion colonies. The only vidwan willing to commute beyond for tuition was Sankara Bhagavatar... There were the heady thrills of competitions conducted by the major sabhas. Says Aruna, "I used to go to hear people like Meera Nathan. Her Sahana rings in my ears still! The standard was high and spurred us to greater achievements. Tension mounted as each excelled the one before. The judge's task was never easy!" Jayashri recalls that Guru Balamani challenged herself, and the judges, by ensuring that each of her many students had a different repertoire for any of these competitions.

Priyadarshini Narasimhan

But the Meera Nathans were lost to domesticity. The glass ceiling prevented the local artist getting either money or fame as a professional. Those who could do so, migrated to Chennai. Aruna herself spends months in the Tamil capital to keep her contacts going. But there are advantages in part time Mumbai residence if you know how to access them. Aruna's activities have diversified beyond the conventional. She does Carnatic music appreciation seminars at the NCPA annually, performed jugalbandhis with Hindustani musicians like Neela Bhagwat, Shubha Mudgal and Uday Bahawalkar. She has given duet recitals in churches all over France with a French singer of medieval liturgical music, and jammed with Flamenco artists in Spain.

However, reactions are mixed when you ask the young Carnatic musicians in Mumbai today about their prospects in the field. All of them have a college education and feel they may have to work as bankers or computer engineers in order to afford the pursuit of serious music. Many of them believe that they are up against a stone wall if they don't migrate to Chennai. A few like Priyadarsini Narasimhan, 21, who has learnt vocal music from Tiruvarur N. S. Chandrasekhar and Bharatanatyam from the Rajarajeswari school, believe they can make it if they persist with sincerity.

Aruna Sairam sums up the current scene. "There's a new crop of talent coming up. The youngsters invariably hold Carnatic jam sessions on Saturdays, either singing in turn, or analysing a concert given by one of them. Whether such talent will shift to Madras or not I can't say, but I do know that the girls will not allow marriage to snuff out their careers. Despite the dwindling of audiences due to other forms of entertainment, Carnatic music has flourishing roots in Mumbai."

As it does in every part of the world where it offers the nourishment of home and culture to the expanding diaspora.

A Sabha for Mumbaites The biggest showcase for Carnatic music in Mumbai is the Shanmukhananda Fine Arts and Sangeetha Sabha, launched in 1952 when three existing sabhas merged to serve the needs of the south Indian community, then clustered in the Matunga-Sion-King Circle areas. It was the place for vidwans and rasikas to congregate, its primacy rarely challenged by the few other sabhas like the (now virtually defunct) Bharatiya Society. The organisers were music loving businessmen who managed to get financial support, goodwill and deferred payment facilities to build a hall in 1963. This became the prestigious nucleus of all cultural activities for the south Indians. Musicians from all parts of India felt it was an honour to perform there. The sabha's music school was shifted to the new premises. In the following decades it was to promote and nurture the fine arts in its expanding activities, which included seminars, the journal Shanmukha, and most importantly, keeping the adrenalin flowing in the young with its music competitions. "Well wishers included Gujarati industrialists and political leaders of Maharashtra," explains Mr.Jayaram Mani, Hon. Secretary, and son of founder-chairman R.S.Mani. "We had 6000 members after the hall was built." The sabha had to conduct two recitals by the same artist on successive days to enable all members to attend! A disastrous fire destroyed the hall in 1990. Undaunted, the management set about reconstruction. Eight years later, they had a complex with better facilities, stage design and acoustics, housing the music school, administration blocks and health centre. The picture is different today. Population shifts have dispersed south Indians to other suburbs where new sabhas have come up, as at Mulund and Vile Parle. "The TV lure coupled with the difficulties of commuting have reduced attendance. Yet leading artists are assured of 1000-1500 listeners." Since the membership fee continues to be low (Rs 20) sponsorship is needed for the monthly and annual programmes. The regulars are in the 35 to 80 age group. Youngsters come for programmes of their choice. Mythological plays are still a major draw. Music seminars and workshops are a part of the activities. "We promote local talent, give youngsters our 250 seater mini hall to perform. Our competitions are eagerly awaited," says Mr.Mani. But he does admit that tastes have changed. Present day audiences prefer pleasing music to the heavy kind. From Ganesh Kumar, Vice President of the 38-year-old Fine Arts Society, Chembur, you get a different picture of the changing needs of the community. The sabhas's 10-year-old building has not only a big auditorium and space for its music/dance school, but a community hall for holding marriage functions or group activities like the community celebration of the Navaratri with a kolu and entertainment by its Ladies and Youth wings. Membership stands at Rs. 2300. Programmes include monthly Carnatic music concerts, plus an annual festival in January which features Hindustani and Carnatic recitals, plays and dance shows ("With very good corporate and audience support") as also a Carnatic music festival in February. The Sabha focusses on Hindustani music in exclusive festivals like the Gurupaurnima where leading performers are featured after felicitations to eminent gurus. ("No other institution has done anything like this here!") Plans are afoot to expand the school into an academy, affiliated to the Bombay University or the Gandharva Mahavidyalay. Three international conferences have been held in aspects of Carnatic music from wind/string instruments to concepts of laya. "We avoid commercial music, but not innovative programmes to satisfy our mostly south Indian members, whose interests extend beyond Carnatic music today. We also try new formats to attract the young." The sabha's focus is now on inducting two young members into every wing, so that they can take over when the time comes and train others to carry on into a future which will bring its own tastes and demands.