Sambar, poli and mridangam: the legacy of Marathas

It is common to see a section of the audience moving towards the cafeteria when the mridangam artiste begins his thani avarthanam (solo) in concerts during the music festival. What these rasikas have not realised is actually they are migrating from one cultural legacy of Maharashtrians settled in south India to another.

If music and good food are inseparable, it is because the Maharashtrians settled in Thanjavur excelled in experimenting with both. In the kitchen they prepared sambar , rasavangi , coconut poli (a sweet dish) and in courts they enthralled the king and others with their music concerts in which mridangam played a major part.

“

Sambar is an unintended consequence of the Maharashtrians’ experiment with cooking when they replaced

kokum (carcinia indica) with Tamil Nadu’s tamarind,” said former Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) N. Vittal, who has published a monograph on Maharashtrians in Tamil Nadu.

There is more than one version about the origin of

sambar . “When Shambaji, the Marathi king and son of Sivaji, wanted some thing urgently for his dinner, the cook prepared a dish using tamarind as kokum was not in stock. The king loved the lingering taste of tamarind. Probably, the king lent his name to the dish,” contended Mr Vittal.

Vangi , in Rasavangi , itself suggests it is made of brinjal. “The poornam of coconut gravel with sugar for stuffing the poli is also Marathas’ contribution,” said Mr Vittal.

But it was not clear whether

rava dosa was also a discovery of Marathas, because the

rava used for making the dosa is actually called “Bombay rava” in southern districts of Tamil Nadu.

Lalitha Ram, the biographer of legendary mridangam player Pazhani Subramania Pillai, explained that while there were innumerable percussion instruments, mridangam entered Tamil Nadu during the reign of Marathas.

“In the beginning, it accompanied bhajans , harikatha and Maratha dance forms. On its arrival in Thanjavur, it secured a place in music concerts and sadir . The man who first achieved great heights in playing mridangam was Narayanasami Appa, a Maharashtrian,” said Mr. Lalitha Ram.

There are two schools as far as mridangam playing is concerned – Thanjavur style and Pudukottai style. The Thanjavur style owed its origin to Maharashtra. The Pudukottai style evolved by Mammontiya Pillai absorbed the elements of thavil playing. Gradually, the schools complemented each other and the line dividing them disappeared.

Musicologist Pramila Gurumurthy, whose doctoral thesis is on harikatha , said before the arrival Marathas the kathakalatchepam or harikatha in Tamil Nadu always laid stress on bhakti . “Marathi songs particularly abhangs with catching tunes and dramatisation of characters infused vibrancy to story-telling,” she said.

Venkatadasa, an official in Maratha court in Thanjavur, influenced by the Marathas’ music and form designed a new form.

“It was he who trained Thanjavur Krishna Bhagavathar, and his name became synonymous with harikatha ,” Ms. Gurumurthy said.