Stacks of Carnatic music CDs lie around on Professor T. Kanagasabai’s desk, as he ushers visitors into his office at Bharathidasan University’s Department of Performing Arts in the Palkalaiperur campus.
It’s a national holiday, and therefore a quiet day in the department.
But the music - folk and classical - plays on for Kanagasabai, as he breaks into song spontaneously to demonstrate technical aspects that show how the two seemingly opposite strands are actually fraternal, if not identical, twins.
“Folk arts, particularly the songs and music, are slowly vanishing as we get urbanised,” he says. “Only those over 50 years, mostly illiterate still live in the villages. People of my generation have migrated to the cities. Even so, many who have left for education or work, come back to the village for important social and family occasions. Our links to the past linger through the rituals that we observe for commemorating death or celebrating festivals.” The difference he says, is that now, we tend to be spectators of rather than participants in social rituals. “Every rural family used to have a performer, now that is no longer the case,” says Kangasabai.
Rural to urban
A native of Thennancholai village near Thanjavur, Kanagasabai had his earliest exposure to folk songs at home, from his grandmother P. Mahamayi, like many rural women, a self-taught exponent whose repertoire of lullabies ( thalattu ), love ballads, play songs, kummi dance tunes, seed-sowing ( nadavu ) songs and dirges ( oppari ) spurred his lifelong interest in the subject. “My father was a farmer, and also an accomplished theru-koothu (street theatre) artiste,” he says. “Most of his performances, from the Ramayana , Mahabharata and Valli Thirumanam , had a strong classical base, which inspired me to learn Carnatic music formally.”
Despite facing bias from teachers against his caste, Kanagasabai persevered and learned classical music as a schoolboy, from a lady teacher in his village. Higher education took him to Thanjavur, and then Chennai, where he was encouraged to pursue music studies along with degree courses in Tamil, after he stood first in an inter-collegiate competition as a Presidency College student. His doctoral thesis examined the links between folk songs and Carnatic music.
“I used to sing folk songs in stage shows to pay my tuition fees,” recalls Kanagasabai.
Life as a mature student in Chennai had its dramatic moments too, such as the time in 1986 when he was forced to ‘elope’ with his then wife-to-be Sumathi in an auto-rickshaw. “I’d never thought of myself as a person who’d be attractive to anyone, let alone someone from a privileged background like Sumathi, who was a Masters student when I was a Ph.D research scholar,” he says. “Our inter-caste relationship got us into trouble at first, but it all worked out in the end,” he says. “My in-laws have accepted me whole-heartedly.” The couple has two daughters.
The sudden marriage also put paid to Kanagasabai’s dream of making it big as a film music composer. “I realised that I should now assume responsibility for my new family, and decided to go for a regular job instead,” he says.
His six-year stint at All India Radio as a translator-cum-announcer saw Kanagasabai producing three award-winning audio features on the folk music traditions of Tamil Nadu. He has also coached non-Tamil speakers in the language for the Central Institute of Indian Languages (based in Mysore).
Besides this, he has specialised in folklore and folk music, structuralism, translation, modern literature and Tamil Classical music. Among his four publications, the 2007 book Sangat Thamizhisai was awarded the Best Book prize by the Directorate of Tamil Development, Government of Tamil Nadu.
He joined Bharathidasan University as Reader in the Tamil Department in 1999, and then went on to take charge of the Department of Performing Arts (formerly known as Centre for Tamil Music and Performing Arts) that was established in 2006. Of the different destinations that folk music has taken him to, he says, “I am an example of how unchanging tradition can be. I’m glad that I’ve been able to pursue the folk arts in a professional way.”
Ragas in the city
Urbanisation has affected the way we express ourselves, feels Kanagasabai. “When you are in deep sorrow, you usually express yourself with loud weeping and wailing. It may not be a sweet sound, but it is our natural impulse. Those who have been conditioned by urban mannerisms, will be unable to understand the need for, or have the ability to sing, a dirge.” While it is common to see troupes of oppari singers called in for funerals, there was a time when dirges were part of the collective memory of the village, says Kanagasabai, demonstrating by singing a poignant song sung by a daughter bemoaning the death of her father and her own destitution as a result.
“While you find ragas in bits and pieces in a folk song, they achieve their completeness in Carnatic music,” he says, as he sings the same oppari in the classical Thodi raga.
“We are an agrarian society, which is why our music is so attached to the land, livestock and seasons,” he says.
The gradual marginalisation of folk music and dance over ‘pure’ classical versions, or the hybrid cinematic dance, doesn’t really spell its end, avers Kanagasabai.
“Perhaps the number of people pursuing these arts will reduce, but it’s an arch of several thousand years that we are talking about.”
The annual competitions for 120 colleges affiliated to the Bharathidasan University draw at least 2,500 students, says Kanagasabai. “You’d be surprised to note that the children bring in almost all the village folk art forms to stage.”
We return on another day to see some of these talented students demonstrate their folk dance skills. The strong sunshine and the breeze recede into the background as the dancers take over the makeshift stage set up on the terrace with three musicians setting the tone for the day. For a brief and magical moment, as the dancers whirl around in apparently random movements, the undying rhythm of the land throbs, intangible, yet true.
