Twenty-eight years after the Carnatic musician M.L. Vasanthakumari abandoned a concert tour in a country that was beginning to be hit by strife, the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka and the Indian Cultural Centre in Colombo, have come together to rebuild a bridge between the classical music tradition of south India and Sri Lanka's Northern Province.
Beginning October 2, a date befitting such a pacific undertaking, vocalist T.M. Krishna will perform a series of concerts in the formerly war-torn cities of Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya. The final concert is scheduled in Colombo as part of the Navaratri festival, organised by Sri Lanka's Department of Hindu Religious and Cultural Affairs.
The island nation has a long association with Carnatic music. Cultural historian Sriram V. says: “At one point, Jaffna was a nerve-centre for nagaswaram artists like T.N. Rajaratnam Pillai and Thiruvengadu Subramanya Pillai. There was one particular season where all the temples in the area celebrated the utsavam , one after another, and these artists would get endless concert opportunities, which they would finish off at one shot and return to India” In the early 1960s, the vocalist Maharajapuram Santhanam was the Head of the Department of Music at the Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan College in Jaffna.
The last musician of note to tour the island was M.L. Vasanthakumari, who was invited by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation for a series of concerts in 1983. But as rumblings of dissent began to be heard, she was advised to leave at once. It was not a country anymore in the mood for music. After returning to India, she gave an account of her scary experience that essentially convinced artists to steer clear of Sri Lanka.
Krishna has performed in Sri Lanka earlier; but as in the case of many other artists this was primarily in Colombo. He was there in January 2010 for a concert to commemorate Neelan Thiruchelvam, the Tamil academic and Member of Parliament who was assassinated in 1999 by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam suicide-bomber. The Indian Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Ashok K. Kantha, who has been instrumental in organising Krishna's current tour, was in the audience, listening to renditions of poems in Sinhala and Tamil – the former celebrating diversity, the latter decrying boundaries.
M. Ramachandran, Director of the Indian Cultural Centre, one of 24 such centres of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) across the world, says: “Krishna's concerts are well-loved here. This is a wonderful thing for the Northern Province, which has many lovers of Carnatic music. We hope this concert will provide solace to people who have seen a lot of tragedy in the past.”
Krishna's concerts will be Tamil-centric, with selections from the Thevarams, the Thiruvasagam and the repertoire of Tamil compositions in Carnatic music. He says:
“This is an important step to bring people together and initiate some kind of harmony and happiness.” His concerts will include Shanti nilava vendum : the hope behind this unique initiative, after all, is that peace should prevail.
