Music composer Ilaiyaraaja recently met Seethalakshmi, who sang one of his songs in a partially sedated state to reduce her anxiety while undergoing a palliative mastectomy for breast cancer at the Apollo Proton Cancer Centre (APCC).
Ms. Seethalakshmi, a Carnatic singer, teacher and lifelong fan of Ilaiyaraaja, said the meeting was a surreal experience that she would cherish throughout her life. “I am an ardent fan and have sung several of his songs at light music concerts. However, I never thought I would get to meet him one day. I still cannot believe that he met me and the team from APCC. It was so kind of him,” she said.
The song she sang was ‘ Karpoora bommai ondru ’ from the film Keladi Kanmani , a song closer to Ms. Seethalakshmi’s heart as she has sung it as a lullaby for her children.
When she had difficulty breathing during her illness, she periodically sang it as a marker to check the improvement in her lung capacity.
“There is a line in the pallavi that can be sung properly only when your lungs are good,” she said.
A spokesperson for APCC said the team reached out to the composer about the incident, and he invited them to meet him. Ms. Seethalakshmi approached APCC a few months ago at an advanced stage of breast cancer that had spread to her lungs.
While chemotherapy and targeted therapy considerably improved her condition, a palliative mastectomy was needed for her ulcerated breast tumour.
She was administered epidural anaesthesia instead of general anaesthesia, due to her health condition, that kept her partially conscious through the surgery. While counselling provided by the doctors before the surgery helped, she was mildly anxious on the day of the procedure. During the surgery, encouraged by the doctors, she sang the song while remaining in a semi-conscious state. “It just automatically came to me,” she said.
She added that during the interaction with Ilaiyaraaja, the maestro recalled the other instances of his fans sharing how his songs helped them recover. Ms. Seethalakshmi presented him a book on meditation and a magazine brought out by Rasikapriya Fine Arts Academy, a sabha functioning on Old Mahabalipuram Road, of which she is a trustee. “When the APCC team told me that we were going to meet sir [Mr. Ilaiyaraja], I did not believe. It still feels unbelievable that the meeting happened,” she said.
Manjula Rao, consultant oncoplastic breast surgeon at the hospital, who treated Ms. Seethalakshmi and was present at the meeting with the maestro, said it was gracious of him to meet them. She said Ms. Seethalakshmi’s case was an example of how breast cancer could be treated effectively with personalised treatment even if it was diagnosed at an advanced stage.
