That Chennai is the Mecca of Carnatic music is an undeniable truth. It is to Carnatic music what Mumbai is to Bollywood, and Hollywood is to, well, Hollywood. It is also equally true that Carnatic music today flourishes in cities across India and the world, such as Bangalore, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, London, San Jose and Sydney. Most of the above-mentioned cities have students, performers, teachers, audiences and venues aplenty and, hence, artistes are able to make a living out of music through performing and teaching without ever having visited or performed in Chennai. Yet, it is interesting that barring a few exceptions all the ‘stars’ of Carnatic music — those who attract full houses and are written about in the media — are either from Chennai or have lived here long enough to be considered a ‘local’. This poses an interesting question: in this day and age of frequent-flying, emails and Skype, is it still necessary to have Chennai as a home base in order to be a certified Carnatic music ‘star’?
Let’s rewind to some decades earlier when Chennai had become the new seat of Carnatic music, equipped with a critical mass of organisers, patrons and artistes. In an era before the internet and affordable civil aviation it was but natural that artistes serious about a performing music career came to Chennai to further their prospects. Being in Chennai provided easy access to meet sabha secretaries, to be seen and heard at important venues and also to imbibe the rich concert culture that Chennai afforded.
Closer opportunities
Why, some of our greatest stalwarts (such as G.N. Balasubramaniam, T.N. Krishnan and others) got their ‘big breaks’ by performing ‘replacement’ concerts, when a senior artiste called in a no-show. It is hard to imagine being able to do that living in Bangalore, where it would take two or three days for a letter to reach, and another day or two to get to Chennai. Second, while we are often led to believe that PR and networking for concerts are recent phenomena, anecdotes and biographies indicate that even back then, developing good relations with sabha secretaries was a must, and one had to circulate at chamber concerts, music conferences and the right coffee houses, so that one could ‘accidentally bump’ into a sabha secretary, and casually inquire about performing in the forthcoming festival.
There are several who opine that great musicians — such as a Sripada Pinakapani or a Susarla Sivaram — never got their full due as a result of their disadvantageous geographical location.
A cursory study of the concert listings on any given day in the Season shows that about a third, if not more, of the concert slots are taken up by artistes residing in other cities/countries. And these are not just the wannabes. Well-known senior and respected concert musicians from other cities feel the need to perform in Chennai. Why is that? Certainly not for the concert remuneration, or for the joy of singing to halls jam-packed with empty chairs. And one has to keep in mind that these are musicians who, in any other city, attract good crowds, remunerations and concert slots. But, most are unable to ever make it to the list of popular musicians in Chennai.
And then there are the others who decide to move bag and baggage to Chennai so that they can be considered ‘locals’. Just as there are tales galore of film aspirants arriving at the Mumbai railway station and sleeping on platforms and bus stands, so also, there are musical aspirants who come to the city leaving behind their cushy homes, live with grandparents or relatives, and work towards success and stardom in classical music.
Chennai’s attraction
The need for acceptance among the fraternity of Carnatic musicians is what attracts aspirants to Chennai. This acceptance is measured by concerts, crowds and critiques in newspapers in this city has, which has built up a reputation as an opinion-maker, and other cities look up to Chennai, as one would an older brother, for opinions and judgments. And despite the proliferation of Carnatic music around the globe, where else will you see an auditorium filled to capacity for a lecture demonstration on tanam singing at 8 a.m. on a weekday? It is this kind of devotion that still makes this city the last word in music.
And Chennai, for all its opportunities, is not as unbiased as it would like to believe. Just as an IPL team may have a Ponting or Malinga performing brilliantly, but the adoration and adulation is still reserved for ‘ enga thalai Dhoni’, similarly, for all the concerts that Hyderabadis or Keralites perform in Chennai, it is generally the namma paiyyans of Chennai who will be loved and feted.
Brilliant artistes, right from the time of Mysore T. Chowdaiah and Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar to Voleti Venkateshwarulu, Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, Balamuralikrishna, Kamalakar Rao have been the darlings of the Chennai rasika -s. Jesudas, the Hyderabad Brothers, Mysore Brothers and the Malladi Brothers have their own following today. But given that all the other three southern States have had similar hallowed traditions of classical music, surely there should have been plenty more?
A case in point are stalwarts such as R.K. Srikanthan and Parassala Ponnammal, both from neighbouring States, who are today celebrated as the torchbearers of the Carnatic music tradition. And yet, were these artistes lauded and feted when they were in their prime as they are today? Did crowds throng to their concerts in their heyday, the way they did for a Semmangudi, GNB or a Madurai Mani?
Were they at the centre of controversies and rivalries, the essential ingredients of stardom, like the local greats? It is perhaps because they continued working on their music away from the limelight, which allowed them to introspect and understand their music better, and gave their music that vintage sheen that we respect them for today. While Carnatic music continues to grow in its reach and spread, the surest way to increase your chances of becoming a Carnatic star is to have a pin-code that begins with 600.
(Manasi Prasad, an MBA from IIM Bangalore, is a Carnatic vocalist based in Bangalore; email: raagamanasi@gmail.com)
