Senior music vidwan Malladi Suribabu, father of the present day Malladi Brothers duo, came into contact with Dr. Pinakapani at a workshop. Malladi says, “I was a pupil of Voleti Venkateswarulu who had already initiated us into Paani’s style of singing stressing on sruti, gamaka and sangathis. I joined a workshop by Dr. Pinakapani and learnt two padams — one in Mohana ( Padakintiki ) and the other in Saranga ( Ekkadi nestham ). These two padams were laden with heavy sangathis and were gamaka-ridden (the tremor in notes). I was mesmerised by his rendition. He would dissect and define minute variations which struck straight at my mind. Later, I was given a cassette of Dr. Pinakapani and decided to go to Kurnool along with my musician sons to learn the finer nuances from this unparalleled doctor-musician. And thus began our perennial journey to his place for the next 10 to 15 years. Singing with an eye on notation has become a habit with us only because of Dr. Paani. He taught us to adjust the lyric as per the notation and the kalapramanam. Actually if one sings with swarakshara (notation) in mind it is bound to dent the sahityam. But if the notation itself is rendered like a song with feeling (bhava), then the composition not only falls into place, it would be perfect — both technically and emotionally. This was his point of view.”
Malladi Suribabu feels that the entire Telugu realm of music is indebted to Sripada Pinakapani for bestowing a classical dignity to Annamacharya kritis in the very beginning. Dr. Pinakapani introduced neraval singing to our region. He was like a sculptor who could mould a statue of music with alapana, neraval and lyric as his sensitively sharp tools to etch every minute curve of the figure He is just one of his kind feel Malladi Suribabu and his sons Ravi Kumar and Sriram Prasad.
