A journey in to Musicscape -6

9/18/2017

 

Born: 26th May, 1844 - Died: 26th Jan, 1893

“To audibly ‘HEAR’ music is one thing. To visually see and read about musicians in yet another experience. ‘THE’ music is only one part of ‘a’ musician. His life, his daily habits, his family and friends, his ardent admirers, and devoted disciples, his surroundings, and environments, his objectives and observations, his aim and ambitions, his notions and emotions, his eccentricities, or specialties, his attainments, achievements, and accomplishments, his drawbacks and failures, his tours, and travel experiences, his contemporaries, his successes and defeats, his ‘inward’ make up and ‘outward’ get-up, his cultural input and his commercial outlook, his art based ‘GOD-fearing’ devotions or devoid of such sentiments, his evaluations of people and things – “ALL THESE GIVE A FULLER PICTURE OF THE ‘MUSCIAN’ IN GREAT PERSPECTIVE”. Having heard the ‘music’ in the musician, we now come to know of the ‘MAN’ in him,. The same applies to anyone, who have embraced different careers. Architects, artists, painters and sculptors, politicians, poets and scholars, scientists, dancers, and actors…… “

SB concludes his long foreward implying that having heard so much about the glorious musical accomplishments of the great “MAHA” Vaidhyanatha Iyer, let’s know about him as a person… So, here we go!

Let us begin with a contest between two great Pallavi vidwans’ of ‘MAHA’ s time, Namakkal Narasinga Ayyengar, Mayuram Veenai Vaidhyanatha Iyer who was also a disciple of MAHA. Since he could sing and play Veena at the same time, MAHA had special affinity towards him. Jr. Vaidhyanatha Iyer also had imbibed the Bhakthi oriented musical traits of his Guru. Over zealous rasikas on either side, of these two Vidwaans, had created some sort of rivalry between these two and had arranged a contest at the Madhava Perumal Temple, in Mylapore. Patnam Subramania Iyer was invited to be the judge of the contest. It was decided that each would sing a Pallavi and the other would sing the same where the first person left off, and if one of them failed to continue with equal comfort and ease, the other would be declared inferior and failed! Even reading about it today, makes it sound really stupid and demeaning to both artists. But, this is so real even in today’s contest. Though artists may not be jealous about each other, their over zealous fans can fan animosity between them to create huge rift over a period of time..

When the competition started, Veena Vaidhyanatha Iyer sang a pallavi in Kalyani ragam, set to Lakshmeesa thAlam, (one of the thalamus from 108 thAla system) with 2 Lagus, 2 Druthams, 1 Anudrutham, and 1 Plutham), a total of 25 Aksharas, that MAHA himself had sung in ragam Ananda Bhairavi before the court of Tanjore Sakaram Saheb. The pallavi line would go like this:

“Sambho UmapathE pAhimAm, viShweSwara virUpAksha mAmpAhi” (ஶம்போ உமாபதே பாஹிமாம், விஶ்வேஶ்வர விரூபாக்ஷ மாம்பாஹி). The details of this Pallavi, would be discussed later on a different day, describing the occasion when it was sung.

Since PattaNam Subramaniya Iyer had not heard of the thAlam, until then he said it was not customary to sing a Pallavi in any thAlam like that, which would be a violation of strict grammar rule of music to sing Pallavis. He further said, it was only customary to sing a Pallavi with “Anahata eduppu”( 3/4th place from Samam). Some of Veena Vaidhyanatha Iyers’ rasikas went to see MAHA and told him about this and asked him to come and support his own disciple. Since MAHA was in Chennai at that time, he came to the temple and as he entered the temple entrance, Patnam Subramania Iyer, got up and welcomed him and asked him to clarify his opinion on the above thAlam being suitable for a Pallavi. MAHA explained with reason, that it was perfectly within the confines of a ThAla system and though difficult, nothing wrong to sing a Pallavi in such thAlams. He pointed that while musicians were eager to explore new rAgams, they were less enthusiastic and even ignored the expanse of the multitudes of thAla systems that our elders had left for us, such as Sapta (7), Dwadasa (12), Shodasa (16), 35, 72, 75, 108, Anga, yAti and Chanda varieties!. Hearing it from MAHA, Patnam, a man of utmost musical integrity and respect for MAHA himself, happily agreed and allowed Veena Vaidhyanatha Iyer to sing his Pallavi in the above mentioned thAlam.

When the contest commenced again, Veenai Vaidhyanatha Iyer once again sang in Lakshmeesam for 20 to 25 minutes. Then it was Narasimha Iyengars’ turn to continue with the Neraval in the same Thalam and Ragam, which he could not do. With so much of frustration and tension he even fainted. So it was decided that Narasimha Iyengar had failed in the 1st part of the contest. Now it was his turn to do a Pallavi of his choice of Ragam and thAlam and Veena Vaidhyanatha Iyer was to continue where Narasimha Iyengar left off. He took the following pallavi line in Bhairavi ragam in a thALam that was called “trayathvayam”.

“ThirumAL marugan – arUl seidhidum paraman” (திருமால் மருகன் - அருள் செய்திடும் பரமன்). The thALam was in Thisragathi Thisralagu and dwi-gathi rupaka (tkt tkt tkt – tk – tk- tk - தகிட தகிட தகிட தக தக தின).

; , - pRn - ,dp – mp – dn- Sn || S,, - dnS- , RS – nR- Sn- dp -|| ndm

…- tirumA - ..l – maru – gan. - ..- …- aruLsei – didum- para- man-.. ...

Since Narasimha Iyengar had a very refined, sweetness soaked voice, soft in tonal quality, he could execute the Bhairavi with all its glorious contours, shades, shapes for everyone to devour and be absorbed in his singing. Though this was relatively simple, Veenai Vaidhyanatha Iyer could not focus on the neraval portion, when his turn came to continue in the same ragam-thAlam. He kept missing either the sahithyam or thAla count, which made him fail in the test of this contest.

So, both were excelling in their own domain and failed in the others expertise. It was announced that both were experts in their won ways. Though Narasimha Iyengar was elder to MAHA by some 3 years, MAHA told Narasimha Iyengar, that it was the duty of music and the musicians to make others happy and take them towards the Godhead, not engage or indulge in such contests and requested not to entertain such rivalry whether self grown or instigated by others. It was greatness of the likes of Patnam and Narasimha Iyengar to take the words of MAHA in good spirit as they had immense respect for the man!

It is very evident that both musicians that participated in the contest, probably knew what they were going to sing and had practiced well. A fare competition would be to given a Pallavi by a neutral judge and judge the greatness of the artists. Even then, owing to several factors at play, these types of exercises are intact futile and counter productive. It is very imperative for a musician that takes this divine art form as a profession, not to entertain any rivalry among peers or older and younger artists. Healthy discussions as well as exchange of ideas are always welcome.. After all, is n’t ART for self elevation to realize the SUPREME LIGHT? and not to indulge in petty fights propelled by ego trips?

As the civilization has moved on in less than 100 years, we have even moved these contests among children, in the name of “REALITY SHOWS”. After all everything has been tagged with commercial and entertainment labels. How sad and sorry state of affairs it has become?

- More to come..