Earlier biographies on the nightingale of India MS Subbulakshmi notwithstanding, this centenary year (September 2016-17) of the legendary singer is buzzing with activities on the art and culture front. “They call me a nightingale, do I sing like a bird?” she once asked with disdain, said Gowri Ramnarayan, grand-niece and pupil during a talk on her curated book, “Song Of Surrender”, an anthology of articles and pictures of MS as she was fondly addressed.
Gowri took us back in time to 1928 when a 12-year-old was spotted behind her mother a veena artiste of calibre in Madurai in a music concert where her mother was the main player but was being booed at by the audience. This little girl Kunjamma (MS) was asked by her mother to come to the forefront of the stage and sing which she obeyed. Her first song on stage that day was a Tyagaraja kriti ‘Evari Maata Vinnavo” rendered in a high-pitched voice. A gentleman from among the audience got so carried away by her voice that he got on to the stage and gave her a gift. That was the beginning of a long sojourn in classical music and there was no looking back!
Gowri Ramnarayan
The talk was spiced with many such interesting anecdotes, some already known and few unknown, interspersed with video clippings of MS – pictures both from her personal album as well as the few movies like Meera , Sevasadanam, Shakuntalia , in which she was the heroine. Audio clippings of her popular numbers in the Carnatic classical list enhanced the narration. Gowri herself sang a few rare songs that her grand-aunt had taught her – a Bengali number and a few English songs set to Carnatic notation which regaled the select audience here at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts. That MS persona and voice had a mystic appeal is a universal truth; Gowri only underlined that behind this mystique was a carefully cultivated voice, diligent dedication, processed popularity and a determined discipline to break with the past (her roots) in the social strata. Few of these aspects were dwelt upon in detail while certain hypothesis on MS comfort-zone within such a milieu which she adopted and had to necessarily toe, were allowed to pass by sans speculation or statement.
A lot was said about her roots (Devadasi clan) which in British India was a social stigma despite being custodians of classical art forms and how MS groomed herself through marriage into an ‘upper caste’ lady of consequence for which she had to ‘sacrifice’ her past connections which it is said, that she willingly did . As a child she was ‘proud’ of her father (a Brahmin lawyer) who lived a few lanes away from her house and she made bold to run away from her society into the acceptable fold of her husband Sadasivan, a reputable person in Chennai – a known story by now. Her shift in music from rigid classical Carnatic to semi-classical devotionals, which ‘she may or may not have enjoyed doing’ but definitely came to terms with, was the crux of the title of Gowri’s anthology. The author’s close association with the personality made the talk a lively one.
