He bowed his last to the earth and left never to return; the strings of the violin ruptured to be heard no more. Yes, a guru par excellence, Carnatic violinist Vijjeswara Rao bid adieu leaving a host of disciples in sorrow. And there are tonnes of them; now popular musicians trained and tutored under his deft guidance, mourning his absence.
Ace violinist Kanya Kumari, one of his foremost pupils, grieves his loss, “He was the epitome of a true guru. Music was his life till he breathed his last. Unfortunately, luck did not favour him in health. He was visually-challenged at a very young age and added to it was his blood sugar. I remember my childhood at Vizianagaram where my fastidious mother went hunting for a real good music teacher for my two elder sisters and found the young Vijjeswara Rao a fit tutor. And she was his first pupil in my family who successfully completed her music diploma under his able tutelage. I was then a naughty, restless child not prone to sit steady for a music session. But he found me humming my sisters’ lessons and volunteered to teach me prophesying a potential violinist in me! And for seven years, I trained in violin under him. His style was a replica of his guru Dwaram Narsinga Rao Naidu-the Dwaram bowing techniques, which he diligently incorporated into me and many others later. My parents and we sisters were literally his extended family. My parents found him a wife who has since been supportive of him and has been a real life partner to him. He always wanted to open a music school of his own for which again my mother helped him out and in the beginning it was just six students including my two sisters and myself. Later, he trained any number of disciples both in vocal and violin who have since risen to prominence. He was almost the only guru in and around that region. He worshipped his guru and in turn inculcated the values of revering our guru and imparting our art without holding back anything for the fear of being overtaken by the pupil. What I am today, is because of him; such a guru will never again be born.” A strain of sadness traces her voice.
Unless bed-ridden, the veteran guru, a septuagenarian, never put his fiddle down. He would practice with failing health and lament that a particular note didn’t sound the way he wished. “He would call up my mother, who is also frail of health and tell her so,” reminiscences Kanya Kumari. Even at the training stage, he would hold Sunday kucheri rehearsals for three hours so that his disciples would one day take to the stage without batting an eyelid. A man so great of heart never sought fame and if he wished for recognition, “he was very particular that his performance be rewarded but not his teaching skills; he turned down many an offer of title on account of this,” she adds. Prominent among his pupils are Carnatic vocalists Panthula Rama and Manda Sudharani apart from violinists like Dwaram Durga Prasad and others.
