I can hear the faint sound of the shruthi box and the soothing strains of the violin from behind the closed door. I knock and tentatively open the door. Avaneeswaram S. R. Vinu greets me with a broad smile. He points me to a striped coloured mat, similar to the one he is seated on, in the room. I am soon seated cross-legged on the floor. The pale yellow curtains are fluttering from the wind of the fan. They help filter the rays of sunlight. There is a picture of his hanging on the white wall and other photographs on a shelf. A lone tanpura stands in a corner. While there is a violin case beside him, there are several other cases neatly stacked in another corner of the room.
“This is my work space. I come here to practise whenever I am at home. I am in this room most of the time, usually only leaving the room for food and refreshment,” he grins. Although his wife, Aswathy, is an A grade vocalist in All India Radio, they do not practise together. “We prefer giving each other space to work and grow as artistes,” says Vinu, an A top grade artiste of All India Radio and Doordarshan, who accompanies musicians such as Sanjay Subrahmanyan, P. Unnikrishnan, S. Sowmya, T.V. Gopalakrishnan and Bombay Jayashri.
His work studio is on the first floor of his new residence. He and his family are just a year old to this house at Pappanamcode. They were residing at West Fort earlier. “I had a room just for me there too. But that was on the ground floor.” Like his new practice room, his old room at West Fort was more or less isolated from the rest of the household. “As I need to concentrate while practising, I choose rooms that are far from the hub of the house. No one comes upstairs here, so I can play the violin to my heart’s content sans any distractions. I also like the fact, that the room has natural light filtering in.”
So, what does he practise? “Well, I do not have a fixed timetable. I tend to sleep in so I usually start the day late. While earlier, I used to make it a point to practise eight hours a day, now I practise as much as I can. I start by warming up with the basics and then practise various ragas and try to improvise on them. I also work on niravals, swarams and mathematical patterns. I am a bit of a perfectionist and while practising, I make sure I work on a musical phrase or note, until I get it right. Some of the artistes I accompany on stage, like Aswati Tirunal Rama Varma, for instance, give me a list of compositions they will be performing prior to the concert, so I sit and work on them. I also occasionally spend some time meditating,” says the violinist, who adds that he likes to face north while practising. “I don’t know why, it’s just a habit that I have formed. I used to do the same while at my old residence at West Fort.”
The musician owns seven violins, which he takes turns playing and practising on. Picking up a violin, he says: “This is my latest acquisition; I bought it during my trip to the United States recently. It is Nicolas Parola’s Stradivarius model. Each violin is unique, each having its unique sound. While the music from this violin reminds one of those heard in Western violin concerts, that Italian made violin over there has a sharp tone. My favourite, however, is this Korean made one; the notes that come out of this are mid-tone. I usually use this Korean made one for concerts.”
Vinu plans to add some finishing touches to his workspace. He is on the look-out for a large painting of Mookambika Devi temple to hang on the wall and intends to turn the room sound proof. “I plan to start work after I come back from my concert in Chennai. I am accompanying Rama Varma sir at the concert.”
(A series that explores the workspaces of creative people in the city and its suburbs)
