Singing a different note

A Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer, T.K. Ramachandran is a professional Carnatic singer too.

April 28, 2011 04:36 pm | Updated September 28, 2016 02:16 am IST

T.K. Ramachandran. Photo : K. Pichumani

T.K. Ramachandran. Photo : K. Pichumani

It is not everyday that you come across a bureaucrat-musician and if he happens to be someone as excellent and humble as T.K. Ramachandran, you can't help but heap laurels on him. Presently with the Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Ltd. as the managing director, this Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer, comes out as a most genial person and a wonderful musician at that! After his first concert in the city recently, Ramachandran comes across as candid and cordial person.

What made you take up music so seriously?

“There was a general music atmosphere at home from childhood. My mother Leela Krishnamoorthy was a singer and my father loved classical music. So, I did learn music but never a complete course as my father was on frequent transfers being a Central government servant. By the time, I was twelve, he was posted to the north. I got busy with academics. It was in IIT Delhi that I got tuned to music once again, this time seriously,” he reveals with a dimpled grin.

So he is an engineer and also a civil services officer? “Yes,” he nods shyly. Where was the time to pursue a diametrically different line like Carnatic music? “It was not a conscious decision. During my vacation at IIT, I would go down to Chennai where my parents settled down and there I began to toy with the idea of learning music and actually went ahead to do it too. I was quite taken in by Chitra veena Ravi Kiran's performance and his father Narasimhan. The latter soon advised me to learn music in Delhi with Musiri's disciple Govinda Rao. As I began, I realised how deep music is. And the deeper I got into it, the more the involvement and dedication,” he says.

Ramachandran was tutored further by many eminent gurus like T. Brinda on the tala aspects and Padmaja Srinivasan (another Musiri disciple). Once he got into the IAS, music had to take a backseat with his work-loaded postings in districts. Marriage and kids only added to the state of affairs though the passion did never leave him. Being a diligent officer, he took to his duties in right earnest leaving all personal pursuits behind. “My district postings as Collector took a heavy toll on my music practice,” he explains.

“My wife is my biggest source of support. She hails from Andhra Pradesh from a very traditional family with great respect for arts. But for her encouragement and co-operation, I would not have reached professional levels in singing though I still don't consider myself a professional musician in the right sense of the term,” he says in cool but true tones.

His concerts and his grading at the AIR (B high) however sing a different note. Ramachandran has emerged a professional singer if his stage recitals are anything to go by.

For all those skeptical souls who pledge by music that it has to be pursued with no other avocation on hand, Ramachandran defies this archaic concept and has proved that a matured intellectual is able to imbibe the nuances of classical singing rather quickly, realise the objective of real music, aim at it and achieve it. What else can one ask for? Last but not the least surprising is that the Tamil Nadu officer is actually a Telugu person belonging to the community of Thyagaraja!

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