The learning never stops’

Popularising Papanasam Sivan’s musical compositions among younger listeners has been a life mission for his grandson Papanasam Ashok Ramani.

October 09, 2015 06:00 pm | Updated 07:34 pm IST

Carnatic vocalist Papanasam Ashok Ramani  has fond memories of his legendary grandfather Papanasam Sivan (seen in the backdrop). Photo: B. Velankanni Raj

Carnatic vocalist Papanasam Ashok Ramani has fond memories of his legendary grandfather Papanasam Sivan (seen in the backdrop). Photo: B. Velankanni Raj

Papanasam Ashok Ramani hums softly as he gets photographed for MetroPlus during a recent visit to Tiruchi. Like that soft hum, Carnatic music has punctuated his life from the age of five, as he grew up as one of the inheritors of the legacy of composer and musical genius Papanasam Sivan.

“Thatha used to close his eyes and start singing, so we had to pick up very fast, because usually he wouldn’t repeat the first line,” he recalls. “As a tutor, I have heard people say that it was very difficult to learn from him at a stretch because ideas were flowing like a river when he sang. Even M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, who sang in his films, had to come to him several times to learn his compositions before recording them,” he adds.

A full-fledged Carnatic vocalist since 2000, Mr. Ashok was persuaded to take up formal education by his mother, acclaimed musicologist Dr. Rukmini Ramani, who did not want him to depend on music alone as a career. He was in Tiruchi recently as part of a series of concerts to celebrate the legendary composer’s 125th birth anniversary.

“I was so passionate about music that I used to sing to myself for 13-14 hours during my college days while my mother used to keep pushing me to continue my studies,” says Mr. Ashok, who is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Anna University.

Early years

Growing up in Srinivasan Street No.9, Mandavelli, Chennai in a big residential compound, Mr. Ashok remembers his grandfather’s house (in the centre) being full of visitors every day.

“From the time he got up in the morning till he went to bed at night, Thatha was surrounded by people. So I was never able to get close to him, because I was just nine years old. But I’ve seen people worshipping him. He was like a star,” he says.

His grandmother, Lakshmi Ammal, on the other hand, would rarely leave the kitchen, as she was in charge of the meals being cooked for at least a hundred visitors every day. “Thatha would just ask ‘Lakshmi Amma, sappadu ready-a ? (Is the food ready)’ without ever having to worry about the provisions, vegetables or anything related to domestic needs. It was a mystery, really, how the house was run so efficiently.”

While Papanasam Sivan wanted his grandson to learn the mridangam, the young Ashok was more interested in singing. Chathalapathi Balasubramaniam, a disciple of the composer, was the first to spot Ashok’s singing talent and report it to his guru.

Under his grandfather’s tutelage for a brief while, the young Ashok learned how to sing competently, but with a difference. “In Carnatic music, people normally learn the songs first and then they do the manodharma (improvised music) later,” says Mr. Ashok. “In my case it was the reverse. At an early age I was singing ragams and swarams with my guru, and in my later years, I started learning songs.”

Training

Mr. Ashok credits his mother, who was also his first guru, with using notation to preserve Papanasam Sivan’s compositions for posterity. After his grandfather’s demise in 1973, Mr. Ashok’s training in Carnatic vocal music started formally when he started his engineering degree in the 1980s. “Until then, I was playing the mridangam for concerts and I used to be singing concert-level ragams, but only within the house,” he says. He has trained under Dr. S. Ramanathan, Calcutta Krishnamoorthy, Bombay Ramachandran and Palghat K. V. Narayanaswamy and is currently learning from P.S. Narayanaswamy.

“The learning process can never stop,” he says. “From the beginning, my repertoire has been mainly about Papanasam Sivan, but my destiny allowed me to go to different teachers and learn a lot of other compositions. That has become my forte. In my concerts also, it’s a balance of all compositions,” says Mr. Ashok.

As to whether the legacy can get to be burdensome, he says there can be little comparison between his grandfather and him. “But do you sing a Papanasam Sivan song properly? That is always going to be a challenge,” says Mr. Ashok. “Because he set a very high standard, I have always had to really work hard to prove that I am Ashok Ramani, apart from being Papanasam Sivan’s grandson.”

Life mission

Taking his grandfather’s prodigious output to the rest of the world has become a mission for Mr. Ashok. After resigning as Deputy Manager, Materials in SPIC Heavy Chemicals Division, SPIC in 2000, he has become more involved in the work of the Papanasam Sivan Rasigar Sangam, formed in 1983 to popularise Papanasam Sivan’s work.

Annual music festivals featuring his compositions are now routinely held in Singapore, Malaysia and the United States.

Teaching music to youngsters abroad has been another passion.

In addition to judging a well-received TV talent show for Carnatic music, for the past three years, Mr. Ashok has been training 125 children from North America online for six months to participate in an annual one-hour Carnatic music performance in Cleveland, Ohio.

Mr. Ashok wryly terms it as a blessing in disguise that many children are being made to learn Carnatic music just for the sake of winning film music-based talent shows.

“We always advise our students to learn as if they are going to be a teacher, not a performer. If we become desperate to become performers, then our learning process may become imperfect,” he cautions.

The word ‘Papanasam’ has become his calling card and banner, says Mr. Ashok. “Wherever I go, they may not know Ashok Ramani, but they’ll know Thatha,” he concludes.

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