Namaskaranga. How are you ji?’ Meet him backstage during a concert, telephone him, send an email…this is how Mandolin U. Shrinivas would unfailingly wish you. Even his greetings on festivals would end with a ji ….‘Happy Diwali ji’. These endearing lines will continue to echo in the ears of thousands of die-hard lovers of his soul-soaked music.
He was a child prodigy who remained childlike with a candid smile and words that seem to come straight from the heart. At a time when most artistes are ever eager to talk, it wasn’t easy to make Shrinivas do so. Despite achievements well beyond his age, he would answer questions with a simple ‘amanga’ and ‘illanga’. And then come up with the characteristic reply, “it’s all the grace of God and the blessings of elders”. If you prodded him to talk further, he would just say, “What more can I add? I know you will make me sound good in print.”
Humble, soft-spoken, affable and with a pleasant demeanour…when it comes to describing mandolin virtuoso U. Shrinivas it is impossible to avoid these clichés. A rare musician, his personality genuinely reflected these qualities.
At age six, he first picked up the western mandolin and soon made it his own by bringing to its electric strings an unheard of melodic flexibility, microtonal variations and astonishing delicacy in the upper registers. He constructed a nuanced, multi-layered repertoire, whether it was for a Carnatic cutcheri or a cross-genre ensemble. Over the years, without venturing into compulsive experimentation, he kept broadening the dimensions of his music.
Actually his father Satyanarayana (also a mandolin player) didn’t want him to pursue music. “He would tell me ‘I don’t want you to struggle like me’. It was only at the insistence of his friends that he began teaching me,” Shrinivas had said in an interview to MetroPlus.
As a young boy, when he performed in sabhas, senior musicians initially apprehensive of accompanying him and sceptical of his ‘much-talked’ about talent, later collectively hailed him as the ‘promise of tomorrow’. When just in his teens, he had veterans sharing the stage with him. Though he always shone as a soloist, Shrinivas was also an accommodative group performer. A non-intrusive artiste, with his improvisational dexterity, he would make musical get-togethers exciting. In the recent years, he toured the world with renowned Indo-jazz groups and almost always stole the show.
At a concert in the city, where he performed with flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, half way through, the veteran put down his flute to salute Shrinivas’ artistry. “Kamaal kar diya, bajao bajao,” he said.
Late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran (a film buff, Shrinivas loved watching MGR’s movies) once saw Shrinivas perform on TV and called the Doordarshan office for his telephone number. Since the musician had no phone connection then, he sent his secretary home. He wanted him to play at a government function. When Shrinivas apologised that he was already committed for a concert that day, the Chief Minister is said to have postponed the function to a suitable date.
In 1990, when Shrinivas was playing in London, Beatle George Harrison came to listen to him. During the intermission, he went backstage and told Shrinivas how much he enjoyed his music.
Iconic tabla player Zakir Hussain, whom Shrinivas would refer to as ‘the East-West bridge’, and with whom he performed across the globe, would shout into the mike at concerts, ‘ladies and gentleman that’s the mandolin wizard, a big hand for U. Shrinivas’.
And Shrinivas in a spotless kurta-pyjama, nervously running his fingers through his hair, with the gleaming mandolin in his hand, would immediately get up to acknowledge the ustad and the thunderous applause.
Applause he well deserved, not only for his music, but also for the man he was.
Published - September 19, 2014 06:58 pm IST
