Tamil Nadu Prayed - and He was born

The time: late morning on a Saturday in December 2003. The place: the highway from Bangalore to Chennai, somewhere near Irungattukottai on the outskirts of Chennai.

I had left my office in the wee hours of the morning, driving to Chennai to visit my wife, then expecting our first child. As was my habit, I had some music on in the car. Aah! The pleasure of listening to the incomparable MDR before dawn, watching the sun rise over a rolling highway to the sound of a soaring Sriraga alapana.

I had grown up in a house where music was a constant and comforting presence. The mater is an erudite listener and erstwhile amateur vainika; the pater is a passionate fan of MMI; grandfather was a brilliant raconteur with a fund of stories and personal anecdotes from a long bygone era. At that time, most of the music we had was on LPs. The usual suspects of that era were all something I grew up with - MMI's Kamalambam Bhajare and Sarasa Sama Dana, GNB's Tamathamen Svami and Vasudevayani, SSI's O Rangasayi and Jnanamosagarada, MLV's Tiruppavai and Dasara Padas.

Live concerts then entered my life; I became a TVS junkie. The sheer joy while singing that he exuded was infectious, to say the least. Shankarabharanam, Kambhoji, Todi, Bhairavi - and the myriad hues of Mohanam. The man sang Mohanam at three of the four concerts that I heard him at during the season of 1991, and I still came out wanting more!

Somewhere along the way, Semmangudi took a firm grip on my imagination. It helped that old concert recordings had started surfacing on the net, and I discovered for myself a tour de force that I had heard of previously only in anecdote. Marubalka! Concert after concert with the gem, but one stood out - the Academy concert of 1968, with Lalgudi and Umayalpuram. The tightrope walk at Jara Chora, the sledgehammer-"gotcha-by-surprise" kalpana swaras starting on the tara sthayi Ga at Dari Nerigi!

The competition for the spot of the greatest ever in my ranking was heating up. Which of these greats was it going to be? The flood of old recordings that was pouring out of the net did not make matters any simpler. I mean, how do you compare Ariyakkudi's complete mastery over Sankarabharanam in Mahima Teliya Tarama and Bhakti Bhikshamiyyave with GNB's "dare to go where no man has gone before" pyrotechnics in Darini Telusukonti and Saketha Nagara Natha; the emotional impact of Semmangudi in Moyyar Thadam and Moulau Ganga with the joie de vivre of MMI manifest in Bhuvaneswariya and Kana Kan Kodi Vendum? Not to mention KVN's Kaligiyunte, Nedunuri's Muripemu Galige, MLV's Nijadasa Varada or DKP's Nenje Ninai Anbe to add to this cornucopia of pleasant indecision!

I was reconciling myself to a hung verdict, and trying desperately to get my GE trained brain to stop trying to force a stack rank on everything, when MDR simply broke through the phalanx to be the unambiguous prima donna in my ranking.

The way he could catch you off guard with his unique insights! Those subtle touches - that emphasis on the turn at Manasa Vanachara Vara SANCHAramu in Endaro, those almost occidental embellishments at Karambuja Pasa Beeja Pooram, the make you sit up twists in Viriboni - heaven! This was it, I thought. Not only did I have my greatest ever singer, I now had the greatest ever single concert with all of the above gems.

I sincerely believed that my taste in music had matured beyond the predictability of yore. I had moved on to a more rarefied rasika orbit than the rickshawallahs outside Kapaleeswarar temple listening to MMI, or the mamis who would buy out the flower stocks in the city on the day of a GNB concert.

So this MDR concert was what was playing on that December morning in my car. As I neared the city, the traffic outside the Hyundai factory had come to a standstill. Where I was expecting to listen to that concert once, and the Endaro once more, before I reached Tiruvanmiyur, I had run through the whole concert twice over before I even hit the periphery of Chennai. Reluctantly, I started scrounging around the dashboard, if any other MDR was available. None was. I dug deeper. An unmarked CD peeped out, trying to catch my attention. I accepted the invitation.

And.... "Ummm.... UhWai..... Tatwamariya Taramaa" hit me between my eyebrows. 

What I felt next was not something that I can describe linearly. A potpourri of thoughts and emotions surged through me. Joy - at a rediscovery; anger - for denying myself this pleasure for so long; sorrow - over the unfulfillable desire to relapse into the simplicity, comfort and security of a long lost childhood. I was choking with emotions so powerful that I had to pull my car over to the side of the road to weep my tears of joy at the unexpected "home coming". It was as if I had rediscovered the unadulterated joy and comfort of a homemade Thair Saadam and Vadu Maanga after a long period of eating Janavaasa Saappadu!

The man who had given voice to Sivan's ode to Bharathi (Paamalaikku Inai Undo) might as well have been signing neraval at the charanam for himself... Thamizh Nadu Sei Thava Payanaai Vandavaa. He was indeed born in answer to Tamil Nadu's prayers. Those rickshawallahs outside the Mylai temple were proof of the reality of something that I had not realized... Music is food first for the heart and emotions, and only then for the brain and intellect. And in the realm of the heart, he still reigns unchallenged.

Happy centenary, Sri Madurai Mani Iyer...