God’s Grace

What comes to your mind when I say Bangalore, Thanjore and Madurai? Of course you will say these are cities in southern part of the country. Bingo…any idiot would answer the same. What if I told you that these are names of people and people who are famous…you may start wondering who I am talking about. These were three foremost artistes who left an indelible mark on Indian cultural history. They were Bangalore Nagaratnamma, Thanjore Balasaraswati and Madurai S.Subbalakshmi.

Bangalore Nagaratnamma (3 November 1878 – 19 May 1952) was an Indian Carnatic singer, cultural activist, scholar, patron of the arts and a historian. Nagarathnamma was born in 1878 to Puttu Lakshmi whose ancestors served as singers and musicians in the court of Mysore. Nagarthnamma continued her studies and learned Kannada, English and Telugu, also becoming proficient in music and dance.  She made her first stage appearance before a learned audience as a violinist and dancer at the age of 15.Nagarathnamma became a singer early in her life and emerged as one of the best Carnatic singers of her time. She sang in Kannada, Sanskrit and Telugu. Her special musical forte included Harikatha. Her talent in dance attracted the attention of the Mysore ruler Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar who, impressed with her talent, made her the Asthana Vidushi in Mysore. She later shifted to Madras as it was considered the "Mecca of Carnatic music".

According to Nagarathnamma, she was directed in a dream to build a memorial in honour of Saint Thyagaraja and create a platform for perpetuating Carnatic music. Following this, she turned to an ascetic way of life and donated all her earnings to this cause. Nagarathnamma restored the dilapidated samadhi and convert it into a memorial in honour of the Thyagaraja. In the 1920s the music festival held at this location was male-dominated. As a challenge, she started organizing a parallel music festival at the back of the saint's temple.  Eventually, in 1941, her activism paid off, and the opposing groups involved with the festival merged into a single entity, allowing both men and women to sing in the festival. This music festival is now one of the most popular musical event in South India.

As an erudite and scholarly person, Nagarathnamma dabbled in editing and publishing books on poetry and anthologies. She was a linguist who held religious discourses not only in Kannada, her mother tongue, but also in other languages such as Telugu, Tamil and Sanskrit. She re-edited the Radhika Santawanam, The book was reviewed and attacked over some of its pornographic contents as totally "inappropriate for women to hear let alone be uttered from a woman's mouth.” Nagarathnamma strongly defended her version of the book and protested against this double standard and wondered, "Does the question of propriety and embarrassment apply only in the case of women and not men?”

“It may be true that I had dancing in my blood... I was a toddler when I danced deliriously with that street beggar. All called him a madman when he brought the house down with his frenetic dancing. Was he really mad? His unerring jatis (danced to rhythmic patterns) reverberate in my mind. Who knows which siddhapurusha (literally: “with all accomplishments”) he was? I can still see the gleam in his eye. If I am dance-mad now how could it be otherwise?My first guru was a madman.”

At the age of 7, in 1925 when Tanjore Balasaraswati was presented to the world in the Ammanakshi temple, Kancheepuram. Spellbound was the audience of devotees by the perfection with which the little girl offered her art at the feet of the deity with full devotion.The little bird, as one of her friends used to call her, Bala, was born on May 13, 1918. She was not the first in her family to be a perfect dancer. The family traces its roots to T. Papammal who was a noted dancer at the court of the kings of Tanjore six generations earlier. The mother Jayamal was a renowned singer and the grandmother VeenaDhanammal was the noted and respected Veena player. All the family members would snub her when she made dancing movements. But the more she was snubbed the more she would dance. There was agility in her body and she was electrified to movements like an electronic toy.

It was only when Bala's grandmother Dhanammal recognized her talents that she was given lessons in dancing by Guru Kandappa. The girl rose from strength to strength learning the art with perfection, working strenuously, waking up at 3 in the morning to do some basic dance movements. She introduced such natural movements with the accompaniment of music that in her later years her name became synonymous with 'abhinaya'. She believed that for a dancer of Bharat Natyam, dance and music are one, rather Bharat Natyam is the personification of music.Thus, she had mastered the art of music too which she had partly inherited from her mother and partly mastered herself. That is why when Bala came to the stage, the dancer, the singer, the accompanist and the mood became one.

Although Balasaraswati had mastered the art much earlier, the first public recognition came in 1932. It took Bala two decades more to be presented before national audience in Delhi. The Sangeet Akadami Award followed her perfection immediately in 1955 and the Padma Bhushan in 1957. A doctorate degree was conferred upon her by Rabindra Bharati University in 1973 and the Madras Music Academy too gave her the title of Sangeetha Kalanidhi. Many dance connoisseurs rate her the best dancer of all time.

"Who am I, a mere Prime Minister before a Queen, a Queen of Music"-Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had this to say about her. Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan termed her Suswaralakshmi (the goddess of the perfect note) and KishoriAmonkar labelled her the ultimate eighth note or Aathuvaan Sur, which is above the seven notes basic to all music.

Madurai ShanmukhavadivuSubbulakshmi (16 September 1916 – 11 December 2004), also known as M.S., was a Carnatic vocalist. She was the first musician ever to be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.She is the first Indian musician to receive the Ramon Magsaysay award, often considered Asia's Nobel Prize, in 1974 with the citation reading "Exacting purists acknowledge Srimati M. S. Subbulakshmi as the leading exponent of classical and semi-classical songs in the Carnatic tradition of South India."

Subbulakshmi (Kunjamma to her family) was born in Maduraito veena player Shanmukhavadivu Ammal.Her grandmother Akkammal was a violinist.She started learning Carnatic music at an early age and trained in Carnatic music under the tutelage of Semmangudi SrinivasaIyer and subsequently in Hindustani music under Pandit Narayanrao Vyas.

Subbulakshmi’s first recording was released when she was 10 years old. Subbulakshmi gave her first public performance, at the age of eleven, in the year 1927, in the 100 pillar hall inside the Rockfort Temple, Tiruchirappalli. Subbulakshmi gave her first performance at the prestigious Madras Music Academy in 1929,when she was 13 years old. Her performance consisted of bhajans and was described as spellbinding and earned her many admirers and the moniker of musical genius from critics. Soon after her debut performances, Subbulakshmi became one of the leading Carnatic vocalists.

In 1936 Subbulakshmi moved to Madras. She also made her film debut in Sevasadan in 1938.MS Subbulakshmi also played the male role of Narada in "Savitri" (1941) to raise money for launching Kalki, her husband's nationalist Tamil weekly. Her title role of the Rajasthani saint-poetess Meera in the eponymous 1945 film gave her national prominence. This movie was re-made in Hindi in 1947 and gave her national prominence. Sarojini Naidu said, “Subbalakshmi’s performance shows that she is not an interpreter of Mira but Mira herself.” Her many famous renditions of bhajans include the chanting of Bhaja Govindam, Vishnu Sahasranama,  Hari Tuma Haro and the Venkateswara Suprabhatam (musical hymns to awaken Lord Balaji early in the morning).

The Kancheepuram Saree shade known as MS Blue was named after her. A commemorative postage stamp on her was issued on 18-December-2000. United Nations decided to issue stamp to mark birth centenary M.S. Subbulakshmi. She was bestowed with enormous prize money with these awards, most of which she donated to charity.

The three legends of Indian classical music and dance had another cord which bound them together- all three were offshoots of the Devadasi system. 'Devadasis'- meaning female servants of God. Devadasi system is a religious practice in parts of southern India, whereby parents marry a daughter to a deity or a temple.Originally, in addition to taking care of the temple and performing rituals, these women learnt and practisedSadir (Bharatanatya), Odissi and other classical Indian artistic traditions and enjoyed a high social status as dance and music were essential part of temple worship. The Devadasi system was set up as a result of a conspiracy between the feudal class and the priests (Brahmins). The latter, with their ideological and religious hold over the peasants and craftsmen, devised a means that gave prostitution their religious sanction. Poor, low-caste girls, initially sold at private auctions, were later dedicated to the temples. They were then initiated into prostitution. MS Subbalakshmi once said, “When I was small, men would only think of how to spoil me. Seeing all this frightened me.”

With the death of Sashimani Dev in March 2015, died the last devadasis of  Jagannath Temple, Puri and brought a final closure to the 800 year old cult. Truly God’s Grace when you see the heights of glory Bangalore Nagarathnamma, Tanjore Balasaraswati and Madurai S. Subbalakshmi achieved in their respective fields. The noble rebel trio refused to live the lives of their mothers and their mothers and their mothers.

SS