The MKR story - my poor attempt to capture some aspects of my father's musical and rasika journey in words:
Backdrop: Writing about my father is emotionally difficult. I miss him dearly and nearly every moment is tinged with memories of him. But I also feel the pull to write about him as my tribute, reminisce through his eyes as best as I can. Selfishly, perhaps it will be therapeutic, but also answer some of your requests to learn more about him. If I have provided too much minutiae and detail please forgive me. You can imagine my mental state.
I’ll use some of @RSR and @rajesnat questions as touchstone points but I thought I’d organize in chronological terms and that will also help me to pace this somewhat.
Notes:
1) I will use initials often to save keyboard fatigue on long names.
2) Also I will refer to the great MS Subbalakshmi as “MS Mami” not MS Amma - this is not disrespect rather just how I knew her and called her all my life, and that’s how I remember her. Please forgive me.
3) Any mistakes are all my own.
Any omissions are my fault.
Am thinking of the following structure:
-Antecedents and pre-birth history
-Birth and early childhood (up to age 18 or so)
-College years
-The 60's
-US - the 70's and 80's
-US - 90's to present
-Any miscellaneous anecdotes or thoughts i may be able to gather
Pre-Birth - Family History (aka why not Tirunelveli?)
RSR asked where in Thirunelveli my father was born? - in fact he was NOT born there although of course the family originally hails from there. In fact, the town of Kadayam barely features in most of our family members history after 1850 since my great-great grandfather emigrated from there in apparently not very happy circumstances. Kallaidakurichi, Pathamadai, and Palamadai later do feature more prominently but first Kerala is more prominent.
Even my GF KS Mahadevan (KSM dad) was born in Vaikom, Kerala in 1913. Why Vaikom? KSM’s father KP Subramania Iyer (KPS) was holding a post with the Maharaja of Travancore in those days as did his elder brother KP Vishwanatha Iyer (GF of Sangita Kala Acharya Kalyani Sharma of Mumbai, senior disciple of both SSI and Brindamma).
A brief side-note about KSM’s father K.P.Subramania Iyer. KPS served under the Maharaja of Travancore, responsible for the Hindu religious endowments created by the Maharaja who was the guardian of the temples in his kingdom. While KPS had ample opportunity to immerse in the music that was on offer in the court, he was a more literary type, ie could quote the entirety of Shakespeare plays by heart (even obscure Corialanus!). You can see his influence in my father’s writing style. Note: This seemingly inane trivia on birthplaces does have some later relevance as you shall see.
One of KPS’s sons was KS Mahadevan (my thatha) who as most of you know later became a music and dance critic, founding Secretary of Shanmukhananda Sabha, and editor of music publications. KSM planted some of the seeds for my father’s musical interests. At age 13 KSM moved to Madras from Kerala to pursue studies there at PS High School. There surrounded by music, my grandfather was spellbound by the creme de la creme of the day, from Naina Pillai (the legendary musician and guru for Smt. DKP Mama) onward. You can read about this period in my grandfather’s own words in this lovely piece that he wrote a couple of years before his death:
http://carnatica.net/special/ksm1.html
His wife, my grandmother Mrs. Narayani Mahadevan (aka Chinnani Mami) was immersed in the finest music too. At a young age, she actually learned directly from the legendary Papa KS Venkatramaiah (father of the legendary, Papa Venkatramaiah, and great-great grandfather to today’s kanjira vidwan Anirudh Athreya!) This fact still blows me away since my GM only died in 2014 and actually told me about her stint with the great legend. My grandmother was married young as was common in those days and did not pursue her musical studies much but her kelvin gyaanam was superb. She also knew a stock of padams and javalis that were exquisite. (And of course she was the best friend of MS Mami). And boy could she could ID talent! Two side notes: I visited India probably in the early 80’s Paati took me quietly to DKP Maami’s house, upstairs and commanded Lalitha Mami to have a very young Nithyashree sing for me and my father. Needless to say, it was spellbinding. Many years later, Paati gave me a tape of Abhishek Raghuram singing (which I still have) at age 12 or so which she got from Palghat Raghu and said “he is the next great star, listen carefully to him”. (But enough of that digression).
The association with TNR started long before my father’s birth. TNR played for my grandmother’s eldest sister’s wedding a grand affair in Madras, and apparently it was a performance for the ages (so much so older vidwans apparently talked about it that way). The family had high esteem for his music, but also gave a wide berth to his proclivities. (There’s a story about that wedding and how TNR was kept sober for the jaanvasam night playing too which my dad probably shared in a thread somewhere once).
In parallel, in Tirunelveli, my grandmother’s brothers (MKR’s maternal uncles) were busy cultivating their own musical favorites. My maternal grand-uncle P.S. Subramanian was a well to do businessman and became an stalwart supporter of Semmangudi Mama (who knew a good patron as well as anyone!). Two younger maternal uncles rebelled against the elder brother (!) and became mad fans of MMI and GNB (this is from late 30’s to early 40’s). Later they would all take turns attempting to ‘brainwash’ my father to their favorites which only delighted my father as he could easily egg any of them on. But they all agreed on TNR as an epochal game-changer which explains my father’s early fascination with TNR - Appa related hearing TNR playing on the radio at a very young age even prior to meeting/hearing him in person.
To summarize, even before birth, my father has a father, mother , aunts, uncles who have a passion for the best music of the day and the good fortune to be soaked in it non-stop. So he was born under the ‘right star’ to be an ardent rasika.
