For 81-year-old Malathi Amma, a resident of Pallikkunnu here, the news of the demise of veteran music composer M.S. Viswanathan, popularly known as MSV, in Chennai on Tuesday revived her childhood memories of his passion for music when he was her neighbour living with his mother and grandfather in the family quarters of the Central Jail here.
“He was my childhood friend for seven or eight years when his family lived in the jail quarters close to my ancestral house during the late 1930s and early 1940s,” said Ms. Malathi Amma.
His family stayed here with his grandfather, who was a warder in the prison. She said MSV’s immortal song Kannuneer thulliye sthreeyodupamicha kaavya bhaavane always kindled her childhood friendship with him.
Talking to The Hindu , she recalled that his passion for music when he was a child was so strong that he used to frequent the place of a local classical music teacher.
It had been from this ‘bhagavathar’ that the young boy learnt the first lessons of Carnatic music, she said. His mother feared that his passion for music would affect his school studies, she remembered. He studied at a local elementary school at Pallikkunnu which was closed down decades ago, she said.
Mohamed Nazeer
Published - July 15, 2015 12:00 am IST
