Torch-bearer of the Tanjore Bani*

Today when culture, music and the lifestyle on the whole are forsaking their identity so as to assume a dodgy globalized temperament, artists who sincerely follow that 'hard' path of maintaining the individuality of their traditional artistic styles are undoubtedly of immense value for the cultural heritage of this country. In this regard, Sri Kodunthirapully Parameswaran has stamped a forte by being a faithful follower of the great Tanjore bani of Mridangam, which he belongs to.

Parameswaran's artistic lineage can be traced back to the Tanjore bani. His grandfather Late Sri Kondunthirappully Swaminatha Iyer, a close comrade of Palghat Mani Iyer, learned the art initially from Tanjore Ponniah Pillai and later from the great Tanjavur Vaidynatha Iyer, himself. The strong foundation of rhythm laid in him by the painstaking training of his grandfather, amply prepared him for the gurukula training from Sangeethakalanidhi Dr TK Murthy, himself the greatest living exponent of the Tanjore school. The golden period of twelve years of gurukulam under Sri Murthy was a turning point in his professional career as a mridangist. He faithfully served and followed his Guru like a shadow and earned outstanding scholarship and experience by playing double mridangam concerts with his Guru. He also had tutelage under Sri Parassala Ravi, which he gratefully recalls to have helped him expand the horizons of his artistic imagination.

Parameswaran's style of performance is highly innovative and vibrant with brisk and uncannily fitting 'cholkettus' and 'mukthayis', epitomizing his ardent loyalty to his school. His ineffable accompaniment standards immensely embellishing such krithis as "Amba Kamakshi" (Bhairavi swara jathi) are indeed instances of supreme artistic virtuosity. He has a perfect mastery over the very difficult fingering techniques of his Guru which brings in pristine clarity of each and every stroke on the mridangam. This, it must be remembered, is a characteristic aesthetic beauty of the Tanjore bani His direct connection to the Tanjore school through his veteran teachers, also helped him understand the much extinct fingering methods and contributions of other early generation laya exponents like Ponniah Pillai, Azhaganambi Pillai, Palani Subrahmanya Pillai, Palghat Mani Iyer etc. In short, it is no exaggeration to term him the authentic ready reference dictionary of the Tanjore school. Apart form nurturing several young vocalists and instrumentalists on the stage, which he earnestly regards as his birth-objective, Parameswaran has earned laudable accolades by accompanying several senior artists like KV Narayanaswamy, TN Seshagopalan, TK Govinda Rao, TV Shankaranarayanan, Trichur Ramachandran etal.

Among the contemporary mridangists, Parameswaran stands out exceptionally unique for his excellent faculty in "Konnakol", a vocal tradition of reciting rhythm, which nowadays, is on its last legs. He inherited this special talent from his Guru, who himself had been inspired by the konnakol performances of the great Pakiriya Pillai of Tanjore. This is a remarkable feature of his teaching in which he has got an innately high caliber. His vivid and perfect rendition of konnakol helps the students to earn a strong basis of rhythm and learn the rhythmic patterns in an impeccable manner. Today there are a handful of prospective students who approach Parameswaran to get specifically trained in his grand style.

In the contemporary music and cultural scenario when cheap gimmickries like record breaking marathon performances and media hyped stories happen to be the shortcuts to cheap stardom and the indexes of musical and cultural merit, the noteworthy but unvoiced contributions of such eminent but habitually reticent artists as Parameswaran, will remain unnoticed and our national heritage entail a colossal loss, unless the art and music lovers congregate time, patience and perseverance to learn, practise, realize and appreciate the vastness and the profundity of our rich cultural legacy.

Sankar

*This is the original version of the article about Sri KP Parameswaran, published by The Hindu. Read it here

Individuality and Success

Is life a trade off between individuality and success? The ironies I have been experiencing and observing around me, have forced me come into terms with the fact that individuality and success don’t coexist, in the best of their degrees

I have come across several real-life and fictional characters with strong individuality and some other successful people with good individuality but often diplomatically comprising to the situations favoring their public acceptance or appreciation. History talks about several such heros, in music, in art forms, in literature, in research, and in other realms of life.

What I try to imply by the term, Success, is the general appreciation or the glory conferred upon a person by the system or the society of which he is a part of, since it’s a highly relativistic term.

I have often wondered why some people maintain their strong individuality in all occasions. Probably because they have a self appreciation and the strong feeling of satisfaction about their quality of being uncompromisingly individualistic. And for them they may be certainly the most successful and satisfied folks on the earth. Or sometimes they may not be even caring to think about the meaning of success.

An artistic figure whom I respect much for his individuality is none else than Palghat Mani Iyer. How Mani iyer, maintaining in tact his strong individuality and tacit straight forwardness, could get renowned as a great starlwart by the people in common and simultaneously by the most knowledged, is something that always fascinates and perplexes me. But that is moreover an empirical truth which none could/can ever deny. Needless to mention is the truth that, his fame and glory were not something he earned in a day or two; much unlike the present day Guinness bookers or the Big brothers who shoot into immortal vainglory within a few days of public gimmickry. During MDR’s Padmasri award felicitation ceremony, Mani Iyer noted, “Never play for the masses. Instead, train them to hear and appreciate what we play”. I sincerely doubt whether there is any artist today, who have the guts to proclaim and adhere to this.

Another embodiment of individuality is the Varadadasar, Sri MD Ramanathan. He is, I would say, the man who gave a new definition for the term, ‘individuality’ in carnatic music. Much obviously, his was not such a colorful life in terms of glories and stardom.

The movie Fountainhead (based on a novel by Ayn Rand) comes to my mind in this context. The protagonist, an architect by birth and profession, is a quintessence of strong individuality. His uncompromising zeal for getting the buildings constructed strictly based on his designs, without any negotiation for aesthetic appeal and fame, makes him grossly an unsuccessful person. And in a tough situation of his life, when another architect pleads with him to use one of his marvelous designs, he agrees to it without demanding even a single dough as compensation, strictly on the condition that the construction be made exactingly according to his plan. But later when he finds that his condition has been neglected he intrepidly ventures to blast down the construction!

The list of such figures is endless. In Carnatic Music itself if I can cite the names of several such great artists as TK Murthy Sir, Palghat Raghu Sir… how many more such purists would have immortalized their niche in other forms of music, performing arts, literature, sciences and philosophies of other nations, other civilizations…It was nothing else for their undiluted faith in their meritorious creations, that they stood for. It was that confidence of them, the purists, to surpass all the powers of social doctrines based on superficiality and ignorance. Their contributions were out of the ample time they made found for themselves unlike their mediocre counterparts, who might have probably wasted their time in getting themselves preached.

My earnest salutations to all the masterminds, especially for the ones whose names are unknown to us just because they weren’t interested in getting their names carved on the sands of history. It would have been nice if our society, to the least, took care not to term them, appallingly as ‘gandhians” or ‘idiosyncratic brats’ if not try to become eligible and meritorious enough to realize and acknowledge their contributions.