Anil's Art: Indian Classical Musicians

The last couple of weeks, I have been drawing musicians in action, each with a different medium. You can see them at the end of the post.

While drawing and inking the one below, my thoughts kept returning to the man whose portrait it is – M D Ramanathan, often referred to as MDR. He was my favourite musician – across all genres of Indian classical music – Carnatic and Hindustani, vocalists and instrumentalists.

He had an extraordinarily deep voice. A very relaxed, slow tempo was his forte. There were pauses between highly creative passages that gave the listeners time to savour what they had just heard. His repertoire of ragas had ragas outside the main-stream, though he sang them too with elan. Ragas such as reetigouLa, darbar, husEni, kEdAra, gouLa, neelAmbari, sAma come to mind when one thinks of his repertoire. Quite often, one would discover the possibilities in a raga when he sang inventive passages.

Some time ago, someone asked me, by e-mail, “Why do we like MDR’s music?” That set me thinking and I gave him my list of reasons why. Some other admirers of his have opined that these are the right reasons. The list might not be complete, but here it is.

One reason is the bass he sings in. Higher the pitch, greater the tenseness evoked. His pitch is so low that it is soothing.

He sings so slowly. Unhurried. That is very relaxing too.

He sings movements or phrases that are novel. One theory of art says that if there is novelty within familiar stuff, it is more enjoyable. He is like that. Very simple phrases interspersed with nuances that you normally do not hear. (There was this statement that M S Gopalakrishnanan bores with variety and Lalgudi pleases with monotony. MDR's music is related to the latter.)

He also sings vakra raagas and ragas that are not usual.

The pauses he makes gives you time to enjoy what he has sung just before the pause. So, your sense of enjoyment is more.

He does not keep time (taaLa) with palm and fingers like most musicians do. Obvious and visible taaLa creates tension. He takes taaLa for granted and hence no tension.

Even visually - he wore only white and was completely unostentatious.

He sang for himself (and/or for god, as perhaps, he himself thought) that also reduced tension.

This post cannot be complete without this anecdote: He was singing in Ayyanar College of Music in Mysore. This place is known as Bidaram Krishnappanavara Ramamandira. This is a small rectangular hall. The shorter side of the rectangle facing East, there is a niche with a large picture of Srirama Pattabhisheka. At the other, a small stage is erected, on which musicians perform, facing the picture. The stage is very small and the musicians are very close to one another. The walls are adorned with original oil paintings of dashAvatAra, with elaborate rosewood frames. The atmosphere of this hall is very special.

At the end of one his concerts, he started singing Mangala. (This is a short piece of music sung at the end of every Carnatic music concert and is a prayer for the wellbeing of everyone around.) Usually, the listeners get up and start preparing to leave when Mangala starts. On this occasion too they started rising. MDR gesticulated and bade them sit down. He told them, in Tamil, “You should not do this! Mangala is a prayer to Lord Rama for the wellbeing of everyone. You should get up only after that is sung” Everyone sat down. He proceeded to sing the most elaborate Mangala I have ever heard. The piece that is usually over in a minute or two, at most, he sang for what appeared to be half an hour. I am certain that it lasted, at the least, ten minutes. Everyone sat down and what a lovely, elaborate Mangala we were treated to!

While writing this post I was listening to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU66tMycLFM