“Ettanayo piravi edutthu edutthe ilaitthen” (I'm tired of this repeated cycle of births)
…. A once in a lifetime neraval in a grand SankarAbharaNam at the AIIMS auditorium in Delhi in late 1990. My first live concert. What an initiation to this addictive habit, with TVS and VVS pushing each other to ever greater heights across Purvikalyani, Kaanada, Ranjani and of course this Sankarabharanam!
TVS was the first artiste I was totally obsessed with. I chased him across concerts whenever opportunity arose. I remember going to 4 concerts of his in 10 days during the 1991 Chennai music season. Heard 3 elaborate Mohanams in those (RTP at the Academy, Evarura at Narada Gana Sabha and Kapali at Kalarasana), yet I was a wee bit disappointed he didn’t repeat Mohanam at the last of the four at Nungambakkam Fine Arts.
He may not have been the most technically sophisticated singer, but I have heard some of the best renditions of our biggest ragas from him. Of course there are several, but my favorites are Kana kan kodi vendum in KAmbhOji (AIR sangeet sammelan), Kartikeya Gangeya in Todi (pre-rec tape), Etavunara in Kalyani (Parliament Club Delhi), Yaaro ivar yaaro in Bhairavi (Music Academy), and of course Tookiya Tiruvadi (from the AIIMS concert I referred at the beginning). Not to speak of less explored ragas like MohanaKalyani, SarangaTarangini, KalyanaVasantham or Hamsanandi, which he breathed life into. Or his fascination at one point for hitherto unheard of audava ragas like Surya, KaushikaDhwani or ChandraKauns that he explored in RTPs.
Humility is a quality that is usually associated with him by anyone who interacted with him. I cannot presume familiarity with the man to say how he was in person. But, a main artiste who "dared” to take up Dwijawanthi as the main piece in a concert with MSG as the accompanist (this was the fourth of the four concerts I attended in the season of 1991), was definitely a man who was confident of his own abilities but more importantly, one who enjoyed music too much to bother about whether he could score one over the accompanists. Music needed to be the winner, as it always was in his concerts.
If you observed the man in a concert ... serenity personified, always smiling, full throated singing, thoroughly enjoying himself ... in general at peace with the world at large. Sole focus was bringing joy to us rasikas.
A pet peeve I have with many fans of TVS is to immediately tag him as a “torch bearer” of the great Madurai Mani Iyer and his bani. Just go through the tributes flowing in from fans and fellow musicians alike, and more often than not “torchbearer of Madurai Mani Iyer” would the second sentence. The Hindu has put that in the headline itself! Maybe it looks like I did that too when I started my tribute with a set of lines associated a lot with MMI. In my defence, my first view into that immortal neraval line is from TVS, not MMI. I yield ground to no one in my admiration and adoration of MMI and his music, but it is a very limiting definition - actually a lazy one - of TVS to tag him as just a torchbearer of MMI.
Being the "torch bearer" of a school or bani or a mahavidwan is no achievement by itself, in a creative art form. This over emphasis on the "torch bearer" phenomenon is what has been in a sense the bane of the Gharana system of Hindustani musicians. The complete surrender to one master, the eschewing of any points from other schools, the fear of banishment in case of such creative infractions are what marked this almost draconian system, all done in the name of the maintenance of creative purity!
What many people do not realize is that the very master who is hailed as the founder of a new gharana (and thus spawning a cohort of "torch bearers"), was actually himself breaking the shackles of the system, not perpetuating it by example! Coming to Carnatic music, the one man whom most musicians of the second half of the last century and later have tried to emulate (be "torch bearers" of?) is the late Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar. Now, for ARI to be credited as the creator of the new concert format, he had to rid himself of the shackles of the old one. If he had continued being a "torch bearer" of the Patnam / Poochi school, I very much doubt if he would have been a tenth as famous and revered as he was and is!
TVS obviously was hugely influenced by his guru and mama, but that was foundational. TVS built his own edifice on that foundation. Being MMI’s nephew was his good fortune, not his achievement. His achievements were his own, earned and well merited.
To close this out, I can do no better than to come back to the lines I started with - the charanam of Tookiya Tiruvadi. Suddhananda Bharathi continues the charanam
"cittam ini un mel vaittirukka ninaitten, dikku verillai ayyaa dinarai kaakkum kaiyaa" (I focus my mind and soul only on you without any other thought or action, O protector of those in need!)
Sri TVS has reached that stage with the Lord. For all the joy he left behind for us rasikas, the Lord would gladly welcome him to an everlasting heaven.
Pic courtesy: Music Through The Lens (https://www.facebook.com/MusicThroughTheLens) by my friend Badri. He has beautifully captured the essence of TVS's joyful persona here
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