Like the ‘young sun’, the literal meaning of ‘Balabhaskar’, violinist and musician Balabhaskar illuminated every stage with his verve, vitality and virtuosity. It was actor-scenarist Murali Gopy who introduced me to this up-and-coming musician in the late Nineties. Still a student, he was making waves with his music as a violinist and composer. Murali said Balu, as he was called, would make it big in a few years. And he did. However, little did anyone imagine that the melodious and intense journey would be cut short so suddenly, so tragically. For Balu was so full of life, so full of music that he wanted to share with the world.
Even at the height of his fame, Balu remained a student. He was constantly seeking to reinvent his music and learn from the stalwarts. If there was a great musician in town, Balu would be there to meet him and seek his blessings. So it was that I got to meet Balu again for a considerable length of time when maestro L. Subramaniam came to Thiruvananthapuram for an edition of the Laxminarayana Global Music Festival organised by him and Swaralaya, a cultural organisation, that year. Both of us were waiting to speak to the legendary musician. As he came out, Balu touched his feet and a friend introduced him to L. Subramaniam. Later, while travelling together, Balu got the opportunity to hold the great musician’s violin. With reverence, Balu ran his hands over the instrument, touched it to his eyes and kept it on his lap like a treasure. While giving it back to the maestro, Balu said with the innocence of a child: “I hope even those few minutes with your violin bestow on me a fraction of your fluidity and familiarity with the violin.”
Over the years, Balu proved that he was one of the best violinists in the country. Balu, that unmatched musician, has passed on but his music lives on in the hearts of his legion of fans all over the world. A child prodigy who electrified every stage with his virtuosity, energy and charm right from his début at the age of 12, Balu was a maestro in every sense of the word. However, the fame and the adulation did not change the essence of the man and the musician. His endearing smile, his dedication and his constant search to push the envelope saw the violinist par excellence conquer peaks of brilliance.
For Balu, music was life and there was nary a discordant chord in that charmed life of his till it was cut short at the age of 40.
Trained in classical music by his maternal uncle B Sasikumar, a legendary virtuoso and composer, from the age of four, Balu proved that he was a musician to watch out for by winning the top prizes in all the university youth festivals he participated in. Prior to that, he marked his entry into films at the age of 17 with Mangalya Pallakku. However, Balu was never enchanted by the glamour or glitz of tinsel town. Although he composed for two more films, Kannadikkadavathu and Moksham , he was on a quest to find his own kind of music. And he never stopped practising relentlessly for that, sometimes for eight to ten hours every day. He used to talk about how it was those practice sessions that helped him make the violin his own.
One of the first in Kerala to foray into fusion music, Balu’s band, Confusion, began with a gig at the valedictory function of the Kerala University youth festival in 1999; most of the musicians were students in University College, Thiruvananthapuram.
By then, Balu’s prodigious talent was evident to his listeners. It was also a time when private television channels were making their presence felt in Kerala. Balu was discovered by Asianet and then by Kairali, where he worked as a music consultant for some time. At various times, Balu, an early star of the small screen in Malayalam, appeared as anchor, host and judge on different shows on different channels.
Balabhaskar performs at Spandan 2015, the annual inter-collegiate festival of Jipmer, in Puducherry.
At the same time, Balu went on to compose three music albums- ‘Ninakkaay’, ‘Aadyamaayi’ and ‘Heart Beats’, featuring romantic numbers and was perhaps among the first indie musicians before ‘indie’ had become popular. His slickly produced music videos made him a rage among the youth and in no time Balu was right up there with the legends of Indian music.
Even while he was game for fusion and played haunting versions of popular film numbers, Balu was very clear what he wanted to pursue. “I want to do fusion music. Unfortunately, fusion has now come to be seen as mixing bits and pieces of songs or genres. That is not my idea of fusion. Fusion, for me, is a kind of seamless fusing of musical expressions of different cultures,” he had explained while talking to The Hindu MetroPlus .
Over the years, one saw the smiling violinist mature into the maestro of strings. During an interview to mark 25 years of his career as a musician in 2016, Balu pointed out how he had already played fusion with the big names in Indian music, legends like Ustad Zakir Hussain, Louis Banks, Mattannoor Sankarankutty, Sivamani, Hariharan, Vikku Vinayakram, Fazal Qureshi …and was looking for fresh horizons to explore.
“It has been a memorable and educative musical sojourn,” he said while talking about his live shows, the space for indie music and his globe-trotting band, The Big Indian Band.
At the same time, Balu never stopped performing Carnatic concerts and also gave a few select recitals with his uncle. Most of the time, Balu stuck to tradition during a classical concert. His showstopper acts were reserved for his high-octane stage shows.
Balu’s greatest ability was to strike a chord with all kinds of audiences. He would play musical games with them, make them clap hands and sing along with him while he extended the stage to include the entire venue.
Balu’s loss is a huge blow to the world of music because he leaves behind a void that would be hard to fill.
Musician Balabhaskar inside his studio in Thiruvananthapuram
He had decided to mark his silver jubilee by helping talented youngsters to reach for the stars. “It is my personal dream and I intend to live that. Often, once a performer tastes success, he/she is forced to play the same track to satisfy audiences. I want to change that and arrive at a situation that is satisfying for a creative musician and the audience,” Balu had said.
The ‘track’ Balu was referring to was the audience’s preference for film music that musicians had to cater to even when they had their own original albums and compositions.
He came up with a new music venture, a YouTube page named ‘Studio Balaleela’, for encouraging talented youngsters. But even there, the chart toppers were invariably replays of popular film songs that Balu played in his distinctive style, head thrown back, eyes closed, a smile on his lips... An image that his fans would love to hold close to their hearts, even as he lives in memories and in the melody he created on his strings.
Fact file
Balabhaskar was named after his maternal grandfather M K Bhaskara Panicker, a renowned nagaswaram artiste from central Travancore.
Balabhaskar had composed the signature tune that opens every programme of the annual Soorya fete.
The violinist was perhaps the first in Kerala to popularise the electric violin and he had an interesting collection of violins in addition to the conventional violin that he had lear nt.
Balabhaskar was the first Malayali to play at the Montreal Jazz Festival, considered the largest music festival of its kind. He went there as part of a band, Naad Brahma, led by Louis Banks .
