Harikesanallur – After the muses fled

Harikesanallur – After the muses fled

If the English alphabet were to be taught children with Carnatic music words, H would always stand for Harikesanallur, though one must admit that finding terms for X and Z would be difficult.

The man who put Harikesanallur on the map was of course Muthiah Bhgavatar and yet, if there is a place where he is least remembered it must be his home town. But before we go to the place, let us see Papanasam Sivan’s recollections of the place when he visited it in 1912 in the company of Konerirajapuram Vaidyanatha Iyer. This extract is from his reminiscences published as Enadu Ninaivu Kadal, written in 1968.

“My memories of attending the skanda shashti festival organised by Muthiah Bhagavatar at Harikesanallur are fresh and clear despite 55 years having gone by. Two carriages had been reserved from Trichy junction and we arrived the day before the event. Like us, vidwans, bhagavatars and rasikas had come from many places. Muthiah Bhagavatar had no enemy in the arts. There was consequently no politics and it was not surprising to see musicians from all over south India. It appeared as though the entire village had donned its best by way of hospitality and we were received with love and warmth. Accommodation had been arranged in various houses.

The next day everyone left for the puja. Namavali was recited and it was music all the way with accompanists such as Malaikottai Govindasami Pillai and Shamala Iyer on the violin, Azhagunambi and Tanjavur Vaidyanatha Iyer on the mridangam and Dakshinamurthi Pillai on the kanjira. It made me wonder if the heavens had come down to earth. The puja itself was comparable to the Rajasuya sacrifice performed by Yudhishtira in the Mahabharata. The feast that followed for the several thousands who attended went on till late in the afternoon.

Music performances were held non stop throughout the day and night at a specially erected pandal near the place of worship. At 12.00 noon, Budalur Krishnamurthy Sastrigal performed on the gottuvadyam and the Sriragam that I heard that day has not been surpassed. That evening at 4.00 pm, the Karaikkudi brothers performed on the veena, accompanied by Dakshinamurthi Pillai on the mridangam. The entire congregation listened to their rendition of the Kapi Narayani piece “Sarasasamadana” in rapt attention. I did not have the maturity to appreciate the nuances of their performance but I listened to it with pleasure. At 8.00 pm, a full bench concert of Pushpavanam Iyer accompanied by Govindasami Pillai, Azhagunambi Pillai and Dakshinamurthi Pillai commenced. It was music fit for the Gods.

On the second evening, there was a Harikatha by Tiruppazhanam Panchapakesa Sastrigal followed by a concert of Konerirajapuram Vaidyanatha Iyer at 10.30. Considering that Kallidaikurichi residents generally felt that their Vedantha Bhagavatar was superior even to sage Narada, there was an enormous gathering to listen to Iyer with people having come from far flung areas.

The concert did not begin auspiciously. Iyer had hardly finished rendering the pallavi of the Hamsadhvani kriti “Raghunayaka” when Dakshinamurthi Pillai’s mridangam went off sruti. Repeated attempts to set it right were fruitless. There was a suggestion from a few that Azhagunambi ought to be called in. But he had already left for a concert at Kollam. Dakshinamurthi Pillai called for a second mridangam leading to a caustic cry from someone that this concert was to be with double mridangam. By the time the performance resumed the spell was broken and people had begun to leave. Muthiah Bhagavatar was disappointed even as several people streamed out commenting derisively that Pillai did not know how to tune his mridangam. The concert continued.

At 12.30 am, in the silent watches of that hour, Iyer began Todi. It was as though he had been a tiger waiting to make a spring all along. He now soared and it is impossible to describe the way he sang. Those dozing in the vicinity sat up. Vidwans like the Karaikkudi brothers rushed in and took up seats in the front. Within ten minutes the place was full. Thrilled beyond emotion I could hear my own voice offer its thanks to God by means of a high pitched “Nama Parvati Pataye”. “Hara Hara Mahadeva” intoned the crowds in reply and the cry rent the heavens. An emotional Muthiah Bhagavatar placed a garland around my neck.”

That was Muthiah Bhagavatar’s Harikesanallur during its days of glory.

Cut now to the 1940s when the lion was in his winter. Bhagavatar had then made neighbouring Veeravanallur his base and resided there. Old timer Sankari (Rajam) Subramaniam remembers as a child being overawed by his personality. Anything connected with music was enough to excite Bhagavatar she remembers. If singing was in progress in any house he would interest himself and ask as to who was teaching the children and would want to know what songs were being taught. He would ask the children to sing and encourage them. If a Radha Kalyanam happened, he would take the lead in the Deepa pradakshinam dance, when men wearing anklets would dance around a lamp even as the ashtapadis were recited or sung. The dance had a particular rhythm to it and Bhagavatar was the acknowledged expert. Every evening a bench would be put out on the street for Bhagavatar and his friends and conversation, largely on matters musical would go on far into the night. It was from Veeravanallur that Bhagavatar went to Mysore, a physically exhausted and ill man. There he died in 1945. With him died all music in Harikesanallur.

In 1997, scholar BM Sundaram, visited Harikesanallur and on his return wrote an article in Sruti (see issue 153, June 1997), lamenting the complete absence of any memorial to Bhagavatar in the village. He wrote of a bhajanai mandapam where a yantram that had the symbols of the vel (spear) and mayil (peacock) entwined and a large Tanjore painting of Subrahamanya, both worshipped by Bhagavatar, were kept. According to BM Sundaram, the bhajanai mandapam was built by Bhagavatar and that was where he conducted his skanda shashti festival. In 1997, this mandapam had a tiled roof. BMS had also written that the only resident who remembered Bhagavatar was Sankaranarayana Iyer who out of his meagre purse funded an annual skanda shashti festival at the bhajanai mandapam. Iyer also paid for the upkeep of the mandapam.

The biography mentioned a school run in Harikesanallur in the name of Bhagavatar. But I did not see it. Perhaps it is still being run. In recent years, the Harikeshanjali Trust and the Narada Gana Sabha Trust have both come forward and have been formulating schemes to perpetuate the memory of Bhagavatar in his native place. Hopefully something positive will emerge out of it. Till then, Harikesanallur will stand testimony to the Indian sense of history and respect for heritage.

The Composer of Colletpet

This article is a sequel to what I wrote in the last issue of Sruti. I had mentioned in it that Colletpet may not have been sanctified by a composition but it deserved to be termed a Sangeetha Sthalam for the way it fostered the arts. But even as I typed those lines in a hurry I had a hunch that I may be wrong in stating that there are no compositions in praise of Kalyana Varadaraja Swami. A couple of days ago I visited the Music Academy library and looked up Gana Manjari, a compilation of the compositions of Veenai Krishnamachariar, the younger brother of Tiger Varadachariar and discovered to my delight that most of his compositions are dedicated to this deity. In fact Krishnamachariar’s mudra was Padmapuri Varada or minor variants of that term. The book has 12 varnams and around 30 compositions and almost all of them are in praise of either Kalyana Varadaraja or Rama who is enshrined in a sanctum in the same temple complex. Colletpet apparently was also referred to as Padmapuram by the local inhabitants and Krishnamachariar had used this term in his songs.

The book, published in 1966 by Kalakshetra is a compilation of Krishnamachariar’s songs by Dr Alamelu Govindarajan and has an introduction by C Seshachalam, the proprietor of the famed Curzon & Co which specialises in furniture and is identified with its landmark building on Mount Road. He writes that Colletpet played an important role in the musical moulding of Krishnamachariar. According to him, Krishnamachariar’s (and Tiger’s) father was Uttama Bhagavata Matam Sri Ramanujachariar Swamy who lived with “his good lady who was endowed with an uncommonly high musical talent” at Kalathur near Tiruvallur. And when Krishnamachariar and his brothers were young, the family migrated to Colletpet which was then “a quiet agraharam, set in a sea of calm acres of swaying and soughing coconut palm groves,” with in its centre the temple to Kalyana Varadaraja. Wonder what happened to all that?

Seshachalam wrote that “As a near-at-hand tranquil oasis, many of the progressive and prosperous Arya Vysya merchant princes found in Collet Pettah a desirable haven for weekends, away from the noise and bustle of metropolitan Chennapatna. Many were the houses with traditional inner courtyards, sheltered koodams and shady pyols, flowing with holiday hospitality and cultured leisure. The fabulously wealthy Calavala family was prominent in this circle; as also their nephews, my forebears, the not-so-wealthy Chimata Brothers- Namberumal, Alavandar and Ramanujam, familiarly known as ‘Wenlock’ and ‘Curzon’ Chettiars. They were fine connoisseurs and generous devotees of music, which characteristic they obviously inherited from their father, Chimata Krishnaswami Chetty, who for the pure pleasure of it, was Cello instructor in Fort St George!”

Among the Chimata Brothers, Namberumal was a vainika and helped the Tachur Brothers in bringing out their books. It was thanks to him that Krishnamachariar’s musical talents were discovered and he was apprenticed under Pancha Tala Neelakanta Sastry, an expert in the field. Krishnamachariar was ever grateful to the Chimata family for this and according to Seshachalam, “almost became a member of the family, always accompanying them on their pilgrimages and picnics also.”

It was also thanks to the Chimata family that Krishnamachariar acquired his prefix of Puliyodarai. Once the Curzon Chettiars were offering worship at the Triplicane temple of Parthasarathy and there was a crisis in the madapali. Krishnamachariar had to lend an active hand in the making of the Puliyodarai and it was found to be top class. That evening, he made his musical debut at the shrine and word got around that the singer was the man who had turned out the tasty offering in the morning and the name of the dish permanently became his prefix.

On Krishnamachariar’s compositions Seshachalam wrote that they were “precise, logical, with a carillon purity of well-defined musical syllabification, faithfully and wholly in accord with sampradaya. His varnams are true models of raga forms. They help the students to get a total picture of unerring bold strokes- doubtless a broad, sound, sure and safe foundation for later superstructure and embellishment. Specially noteworthy is his varnam in raga Byagada, in that though it is its very life breath, ‘Nishada’ is not pronounced at all. Of course it is intoned. This ingenious, daringly uncommon bold device, is designed to help the practitioner to appreciate nuances, abstracted from the bondage to swara. I wonder if there are any other compositions of this type. I know of no other similar essay.” The varnam is addressed to Kalyana Varadaraja.

Krishnamachariar later settled in Bangalore where he ran the Arya Gana Vidyalaya. He is said to have been proficient in handling a variety of musical instruments also till he suffered from a paralytic stroke that left his right foot and the little finger of his right hand immobilised. In later years he was with Kalakshetra where he set the Kutrala Kuravanji to music. Krishnamachariar passed away in 1947.

A list of varnams and songs he composed on Colletpet are given below:

Varnams
1. Muddu gumma madanuni – Kharaharapriya/Adi
2. Chiguruboni ninnedabasi – Mohanam/Adi
3. Papa jati maruni – Arabhi/Adi
4. Ninnu nammina maguva – Ananda bhairavi/Adi
5. Sarasudani ninnu – Kanada/Adi (this is on Tirupati Venkateswara and Padmapuri Varada)
6. Pankajakshipai – Shanmukhapriya/Adi
7. Palumaru ninnu – Athana/Adi
8. Sarasangi marulu – Sarasangi/Adi
9. Garavinchi yelukonduvani- Purvikalyani/Adi
10. Manjula veni – Natabhairavi/Adi
11. Taralakshini baya- Saveri/Mishra Jhampa
12. Pagalu reyi – Begada/Ata

Kritis – Paranmukhudai -Bhairavi/Deshadi, Vidyayam dellapudu – Shankarabharanam/Jhampa, Pari pari ninu – Vachaspati/Tishra Laghu – these three kritis addressed to a general divinity and identify the composer as a resident of Padmapuri (Colletpet). The following kritis are addressed to Padmapuri Varada and Padmapuri Rama

1. Vere gatiledani – Vasantha/Adi
2. Karu chichu – Mohana/Deshadi
3. Ni manasu – Kathanakuthoohalam/Deshadi
4. Ne ne maparadhamu – Chayalaga Khamas (from the notation given it does not appear different from the routine Khamas)/Deshadi
5. Padasarojamula nammiti – Nagaswaravali/Tishra Laghu
6. Sadananda svarupa- Kuntalavarali/Tishra Laghu
7. Aparadha memi – Kanada/Jhampa
8. Velavesi diyutakaye- Varali/Deshadi
9. Papatmudani ni madi – Mukhari/Adi
10. Janana badhala – Devamanohari/Jhampa
11. Papatraya harana – Abheri/Adi
12. Dikku lekkuna- Kiravani/Mishra Laghu
13. Papatmulaina pavanula – Shuddha saveri/Deshadi
14. Alasata yemi- Simhendra madhyamam/Deshadi
15. Peddala seva – Kharaharapriya/Adi
16. Mayateetudai – Kalyani/Adi
17. Kanchanamande moksha – Charukesi/Adi
18. Narayana – Jhinjhoti/Adi
19. Nive anatha bandhu – Huseni/Triputa
20. Ikanu ne – Purvikalyani/Jhampa
21. Palimpu vemanna – Harikedaram/Jhampa
22. Manasaraga ninnu – Ananda bhairavi/Adi
23. Anni yerigiyunna – Saveri/Adi
24. Panula mani – Divyamalati/Adi
25. Saraguna ni – Madhyamavati/Tishra Laghu

The Kalyana Varadaraja Swami Temple, Kaladipet (Colletpet)

In recent times, I spent a happy morning with Sanjay Subrahmanyan and his wife, visiting the Kalyana Varadaraja Swami temple at Colletpet. I wrote a detailed article based on this for Sruti magazine which I reproduce below. After it was published, I realised that I had made a grave error in writing that there were no songs composed on the temple. Veenai Krishnamachariar, the younger brother of Tiger Varadachariar dedicated several of his songs to this deity. I then wrote a sequel to my original article and that will be published in Sruti soon. In the meanwhile, read on about what the English called the Colleana Varadaraja Swami Covella.

Colletpet – the Tiger’s lair

Colletpet, or Kaladipettai as it is referred to now, is a neglected suburb of Madras that is Chennai. It is a small but historically significant settlement that is located between Tondiarpet and Tiruvottriyur. To reach it, you drive down from Rajaji Salai onto to Royapuram. From Royapuram you take Tiruvottriyur High Road and drive past Tondiarpet. One of the numerous cuttings on the left is Sannadhi Street and if you take that, you reach the Kalyana Varadarajaswami shrine, once the heart of this locality. In the world of Carnatic music, it acquires significance as it was the birthplace of Tiger Varadachariar and (presumably that of his) musically-talented brothers, KV Srinivasa Iyengar and ‘Puliyodarai’ Krishnamachariar.

Historically, Colletpet owes its existence to two men, Joseph Collet who was Governor of Madras from 1717 to 1719 and Veeraraghava, a Brahmin who was rather unfortunately referred to as Virago Brahminy in the East India Company records. Veeraraghava was the son of Venkatapathy, who was the agent or ‘Egyb’ of the East India Company at the court of the Nawabs of Golconda. In 1675, Venkatapathy died and his son succeeded him to the post. But he was shortly thereafter dismissed for being ‘unduly close’ to Podala Lingappa, the Governor of Poonamallee who was inimical to British interests. Later Veeraraghava was reinstated and by 1717 or so held the high post of Brahman Writer at the East India Company in Madras. He had to interact frequently with Collet and the two formed a close relationship.

What irritated or intrigued Collet was Veeraraghava’s habit of frequently undertaking a journey to Kanchipuram (some say he went every day in the morning and reported late for duty). On coming to know that this was due to latter’s devotion to Lord Varadaraja Perumal of that town, he berated Veeraraghava for his faith. In jest, he also asked Veeraraghava, who claimed that his mind was ever in Kanchipuram, to tell him what was happening there at that very moment. The devotee immediately replied that he could see the deity being taken around the town in a chariot and that at that precise moment, the wheels had sunk into mud and attempts were being made to extricate them. Collet made enquiries and found that what Veeraraghava had said was true. Impressed, he decided to bring the Lord to his devotee. He offered to build a temple for Lord Varadaraja close to where Veeraraghava lived.

Cloth being the chief business of the East India Company at this time, a number of artisans involved in the trade were settling down near Madras. By the promise of special concessions, Collet encouraged the immigration of weavers and ‘painters’(those who printed or drew designs on cloth) to settle in the environs of Tiruvottriyur. By 1718, the new settlement had ‘104 houses, 10 shops, a temple and contained 489 adult inhabitants’. The temple referred to was the Kalyana Varadarajaswami Temple or as the East India Company records referred to it, the Colleana Verdaraja Swaminee Covela. Collet had made good his promise to Veeraraghava.

The area was to be defended by Collet as well. In 1717, Nawab Sadatullah Khan of Arcot demanded that the five villages of Tiruvottriyur, Sattangadu, Nungambakkam, Kattupakkam and one more that appears in the records as Vezallawarrow (Valasaravakkam?) be made over by the East India Company to his Chief Renter, Ducknaroy (Daya Ram). Collet refused and a pitched battle was fought near Tiruvottriyur and its environs. The much larger army of the Nawab was defeated by the lean, mean fighting machine that was the East India Company army.

In 1719, Collet announced his decision to return to England. On 28th December that year, Collet informed the Council at Fort St George that the local inhabitants of the new settlement had desired that the place should be named after him. He also mentioned that the town had a handsome pagoda (temple). The area became Colletpet thereafter and in course of time, the name was corrupted to Kaladipettah. Today, a legend persists here that as this was an area that Vallalar Ramalinga Swamigal walked over, it became Kaal adi pettah. The saint would have no doubt been vastly amused but that is perhaps the reason why the name of the locality has not been slated for a change. Or perhaps the administration simply forgot Colletpet. Certainly a visitor to the place today would be convinced that no municipal attention is paid to it.

Veeraraghava lavished money and love on the temple. He was allowed by Collet to collect ‘a small duty on imports and exports for the maintenance of the temple’. After his death, his son Kolacherla Papiah Brahminy petitioned the Company that his father had “expended his whole estate on the pagoda.” The Company settled the management of the temple as a hereditary right on Papiah. Many years later, the temple passed into the hands of the HR&CE Department of the Government.

The Kalyana Varadarajaswami Temple is a small shrine. It was till recently fronted by a gopuram that had become dilapidated with time. Perhaps it was built by Collet. After the sudden collapse of the rajagopuram at Kalahasti, this gopuram too was demolished as a safety measure and efforts are now on to collect funds to build a new one. Today, the temple is therefore fronted by ugly galvanised sheets which hide the huge gash in the earth where the tower once stood.

The temple inside is a curious amalgam of some wonderfully graceful stonework and hideous modern disasters that have been grafted on to it. Thus you have a beautiful four-pillared mandapam and also a strange circular shrine for the navagrahas. The main shrine is fronted by what must have been a wonderful mandapam with sixteen stone pillars holding up the roof. Alas, one side is now closed with sanctums of doubtful aesthetics for various acharyas. The other side is bricked up and has ugly rolling shutters to give access from the side. The Varadarajaswami shrine retains much of its stonework but the backdrop to the deity is a wall of polished red granite. The moolavar is impressive with four arms and flanked by the two Nachiyars. The deity is an exact replica of the Varadarajaswami at Kanchipuram. On the left of the Perumal shrine is a separate shrine for Perundevi Thayar. On the right is a shrine for Andal. This stands out for its walls painted in green on to which students have written their examination roll-numbers as a prayer for securing pass marks. There are some romantic ‘inscriptions’ as well, no doubt hoping for a pass in the test of life.

Close to the entrance, at the left are shrines for Anjaneya and Chakrathalwar. The temple has a large tank with steps cut to provide access. But there is no water in it.

Being in the centre of a thriving business and residential locality, the temple has a steady stream of devotees. And what makes up for the tackiness of the shrines is the remarkable elegance with which the youthful priests decorate the deities with flowers. Saturdays are when the temple sees a throng of devotees.

The Sannadhi Street is no longer a quiet thoroughfare with tile-roofed houses as it must have been during Tiger’s time. It is today a bustling bazaar with lorries offloading several goods. Concrete buildings of various shapes and sizes have taken over and only a couple of old houses still hang on. Certainly none has heard of Tiger and his brothers. But at one time, if we are to go by what Tiger said in a radio interview, the place breathed music. Here are some extracts that prove that this was indeed a Sangeetha Sthalam if not sanctified by a composition then at least by the way it fostered the arts.

“It was said that even the pillars of my house could sing,” began Tiger. His elder sister was renowned for her repertoire of songs and if there was any wedding in the neighbourhood, she would be pressed into service.

Next in line was an elder brother, Ramanujam who was “proficient in Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit and very good in music. He could play on the veena and the sitar”. Tiger recollected that he provided vocal support for his elder brother’s Harikatha performances on themes such as Nandanar Charittiram. Yet another brother of Tiger’s was Krishamachariar. In the talk he mentions that that it was thanks to the sponsorship of that great patron Dharmamurthi Rao Bahadur Calavala Cunnan Chetty, that this sibling could train in music under ‘Panchataleswara Pritankita’ Veena Nilakanta Sastry. Strangely, Tiger does not mention his equally talented other brother, KV Srinivasa Iyengar, who within a short life-span, for he died in 1928, published several music books.

Navaratri was a time for music. Tiger remembered that the initial attraction during this festival was the prasadam – comprising sundal, sweets and fruits. But after a couple of days it was the music that attracted him. The songs of Tyagaraja, pieces from Arunachala Kavi’s Rama Natakam, lullabies and dance songs filled the air and Tiger said that it was here that he learnt his lessons on ragas such as Bhairavi, Mohanam, Todi, Kamboji and Darbar.

The temple of Varadarajaswami was the hub for fine arts. Here Tiger feasted his ears on the music of Kakamma, a woman “who could sing over 500 to 600 songs beautifully. My sister and I would follow her in an attempt to grasp her style. Even the nagaswaram artistes of the temple would listen to her closely.” While festivals here attracted nagaswaram artistes from outside, the local troupe was no mean outfit apparently for Tiger remembered that “Parthasarathi and his son Narayanaswami could do raga alapanas and play songs and ragam-tanam-pallavi suites with complete adherence to tradition”. The percussion artistes too were of great quality and Tiger recollected the skills of tavil artistes Vadivelu and Muthiah Pillai. On the days that the deity went around in a procession, the Nathamuni Band of Madras would be in attendance. The star of this troupe was “Clarinet Abbayi who on one occasion played the Balahamsa raga for four hours and topped it off with the song Ninnu basi”.

Dance was another feature. Tiger states that many women were attached to the temple and that they organised dance and music performances, comprising all-women ensembles. One of them could perform on the mukhaveena very well. According to Tiger, he heard the best Yadukulakamboji, Sahana and Huseni here. Equally unforgettable was the abhinayam performed for the padam ‘Telisenura’ by one Rukku during the float festival.

Harikatha was a third element. Tiger recollected a performance of the famed Tanjavur Krishna Bhagavatar at a house-warming ceremony in the neighbourhood. The legendary Narayanaswami Appa provided mridangam support. Krishna Bhagavatar says Tiger, performed on four evenings, with Nandan Charittiram being done twice and Sakkubai and Ahimahiravana Charittiram being the subjects of the other two evenings.

If all this was not enough, there was music outside the temple as well. The local bhajana mandiram had group singing on all auspicious days and on one occasion “my elder brother wrote and directed the performance of the play Indra Sabha. I had an important role to play in it”. Street theatre was popular too. And Tiger reminisces about the performances of Koochipudi and Gangapuram troupes where the music was largely based on pentatonic scales. He remembers the plays to be ‘Jalakridai’ and ‘Sarangadharan’.

Today, music or any form of fine art would be the last thing you would associate with Colletpet. Heaven knows where the bhajana mandiram is (or was). As I leave, my companion points out a board announcing that keyboard classes were being held in a building on Sannadhi Street. Well, something is better than nothing.

Remembering Indira Menon

My tribute to a great friend was published in the Sruti issue of January 2010

Indira Menon – Author and Rasika

Indira Menon passed away peacefully in the early hours of the morning of 27^th November 2009.

I got to know her first in 1999 or thereabouts when I read her first book, The Madras Quartet. While the principal focus in the work was on the lives of T Brinda, MS Subbulakshmi, DK Pattammal and ML Vasanthakumari, it had an exhaustive section on the careers of women in Carnatic music in the early years of the 20^th century. This was fascinating. We subsequently met when Indira came down from Delhi for a short visit. As she autographed my copy of her book when we first met and also included the date, I can see that it was on 7^th November 2001. From then on we became firm friends.

Indira came from a family of achievers. Maternal grandfather Sir K Ramunni Menon was a zoologist and had served as Vice-Chancellor of the Madras University. Father VRK Menon was an ICS officer, sister Narayani Gupta a respected historian who specialized on Delhi and nephew Ramu Damodaran, apart from being in the IFS, was a familiar face as a newscaster and a famous voice over Doordarshan. Indira was an achiever too. In 1947 she contracted polio which rendered her right arm completely useless. She taught herself to manage with her left hand and not content with that managed to learn how to cycle, go mountaineering, make charcoal portraits, take lovely photographs and plenty of other things. Qualifying in Economics, Indira taught at the Daulat Ram College and the Jesus and Mary College. Retiring in 1991, she was able to spend time in doing whatever she liked, which was many things, including the taking care of her mother and listening to Carnatic music.

Indira was born in 1935 in the house that MS Subbulakshmi made famous as Kalki Gardens. It was the residence of Sir K Ramunni Menon for a short while during which time Indira was delivered. “My mother had a tough time delivering me,” she later recollected. “I was huge. And my grandmother Lady Menon, after the delivery and with a view to strengthen my mother, called out to Dr MR Guruswami Mudaliar who was present if my mother could be given curds”. “Are you mad woman?” he is said to have barked. “Why would she want to eat birds now?” Relating this to me, Indira burst into her trademark laughter – high pitched and most infectious. “Many years later,” she continued, “I went to Kalki Gardens with my mother and was pointed out the room where I was born. Imagine my thrill when MS told me that it was her boudoir”!

Music was one of Indira’s great passions. She frequently recollected how she would be taken along with elder sister Kalyani to listen to the Tamil Isai Sangam concerts at the St Mary’s Co-Cathedral on Armenian Street and the neighbouring Gokhale Hall for the Indian Fine Arts Society’s concerts. “On one occasion, MS sat behind us. I was so excited that I kept turning around until my mother pinched my thigh and asked me not to gape like that. After a while I found my mother doing the same and then we both shamelessly kept gazing at MS. The suspense was too much. We wanted to know what her speaking voice sounded like. And so my mother made some inane enquiry as to why Radha had not come. MS gave a gentle smile and said something in a low voice. But that was enough for us. We were so thrilled.”

Sir K Ramunni Menon wanted the best tutelage for his granddaughters and so T Brinda became their guru. Indira treasured the handwritten notations that Brinda wrote down for her. She also had a tambura of Brinda’s which if I am not mistaken she gifted to N Ravikiran. All this and more were pieces of information that Indira shared whenever we had one of our unending telephone conversations – always interrupted by her high-pitched laughs.

Indira and I embarked on almost identical projects in 2003. I began writing Carnatic Summer and she, Great Masters Of Carnatic Music (1930-1965). Eleven musicians were common to both books and while writing it we exchanged a lot of information. She would be tickled pink if told some of Ariyakkudi’s witticisms or Maharajapuram’s ribald jokes and often regretted that the latter could not be put down in print! Later, her pen portraits of the musicians were translated into Malayalam by her friend PK Uthaman for the Kalakaumudi. Somewhere in between, Indira came to Madras once again. This time Uthaman was also here and I took them to George Town. There we helped Indira climb into a rickshaw and we visited Gokhale Hall and Veena Dhanam’s house. Indira was overwhelmed. We also visited Bunder Street where Tyagaraja is said to have stayed in 1839.

In Delhi, Indira spent a lot of time taking care of her mother who lived well into her nineties, passing away only in 2007. By then Indira was confined to the house as well. The polio had steadily weakened her lungs and she needed to be on oxygen support. But this did not sap her spirit. We continued chatting on the phone and our favourite subject would be the music and the idiosyncrasies of the masters of the past. Following the release of my book on Bangalore Nagarathnamma, The Devadasi and The Saint, Indira arranged for me to release the book in Delhi and give a talk on the subject at the India International Centre. A high-profile audience attended the talk, thanks to Indira.

I last called on Indira in 2008 and she had some gifts for me. One was a bound volume containing xerox copies of catalogues and advertisements of gramophone records from the 1930s and 40s. The other was a set of five 78 rpm gramophone records in mint condition with each disc in its original cover. Indira had inherited Sir K Ramunni Menon’s collection which she had preserved carefully before handing it over to N Pattabhiraman for SAMUDRI. The discs she gave me were some that had been retained by her.

My last telephone conversation with Indira was a few months ago when she gave me a couple of anecdotes concerning the Music Academy. “If you are including them in your book, remember to acknowledge me” she said. She was busy organizing an exhibition of her photographs of Hampi. And then she was gone. I did remember to include the anecdotes and also acknowledge her in Four Score and More, all the while thinking of what a laugh we would have had after seeing the stories in print. Truly she was a blithe spirit.