| Paean to a Tyagaraja devotee
V Sriram is one of the most sought after speakers in Chennai on the subjects of heritage and Carnatic music. His book ‘Carnatic Summer’ on the lives of some of the stalwarts of yesteryear has been a bestseller and his talks on musicians at the TAG Centre over the last couple of years have drawn packed houses. Papanasam Sivan, Musiri Subramania Iyer, and Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer are among those he has profiled in his thought provoking and entertaining lectures.
Last week, Sriram told us the extraordinary story of early twentieth century star vocalist Bangalore Nagaratnammal, who triumphed over the hurdles and vicissitudes of her musical career caused by her birth into the Devadasi community. When their patrons in Mysore threw them out on the street, her mother swore that she would ensure Nagaratnam would not return to the princely state unless the Maharajah himself invited her to sing in his court. Even on her deathbed, she made her daughter promise her that she would carry out that vow. Nagaratnam kept her word to her mother, and she was invited to sing in that court. In the audience were the two former patrons of her mother who had evicted them.
Nagaratnammal became the most successful singer of her time and the first to be recorded by a gramophone company in the south. She was a devout follower of Tyagaraja and after accumulating and managing substantial wealth efficiently in Madras, moved permanently to Tiruvaiyaru, where, with the help of her guru, she bought the land on which Tyagaraja’s ill kempt samadhi was located. She bought the land with her own money, after compensating the Maratha owners with an equal extent of fertile land elsewhere. Year after year, she conducted the Tyagaraja Aradhana festival with great care and attention to detail, feeding the visitors to the festival just like the two warring katchis who were conducting separate aradhana festivals there every year.
Her Herculean efforts to unite the two groups bore fruit in 1940, when with the help of some genuine music lovers and musicians like S Y Krishnaswamy, ICS, the Tiruveezhimizhalai brothers and Musiri, she was instrumental in forming the Tyaga Brahma Gana Sabha, entrusted from then on swith the task of conducting the festival year after year.
Nagaratnammal left all her wealth to the Tyagaraja samadhi and aradhana, leaving detailed instructions on how her assets should be utilised to perform the puja everyday at the temple and to conduct the annual aradhana. She was a brave and indomitable champion of women, especially members of her own community. Her life was a powerful vindication of her self-belief and her faith in her and other Devadasis’ ability to stand equal before men and pursue their chosen art.
Sriram’s speech was lively and often witty, full of interesting anecdotes and illuminating insights into the life of Tyagaraja and his followers, his own music students and their successors and others who worshipped him as a saint. Loaded with solid facts and spicy legends, it was also deeply moving, thanks to the speaker’s love of his subject and compassionate understanding of the compulsions responsible for the way people acted in certain ways. To him, Bangalore Nagaratnammal is a towering personality among Carnatic musicians. He certainly succeeded in impressing the audience on the greatness of her contribution to Carnatic music and perpetuating Tyagaraja’s memory.
A delightful part of the programme was the rendering of three Tyagaraja kritis, including two of the Ghana raga panchakam by a group of young musicians, belonging to diverse schools of music, at the start of the programme, It was an emotional and well-orchestrated tribute.
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