Another melancholy evening...Thoughts about mridangam and Palghat Mani Iyer, churned out musical emotions in me…If ever I could have changed the destiny of my birth to a few years earlier. I would have at the least landed on this earth, when PMI had been alive.
If I had consistently thought about anything in my life, with utmost sincerity and it would have been about Palghat Mani Iyer and his glory; the history which created him and the history which he created. Thousands of things to be said about him; to be glorified, without a scintilla of exaggeration; thousands of anecdotes, potential enough to drive an atheist to a believer in the “Mani iyer’ God; Yes, He was the God of Rhythm incarnated;the impeccable idol; an immortal visionary of music and art. To me, he is the frame of reference for everything; every music, every art...
In one of his very few public speeches, (Padmashri felicitation for MDR) the reticent Mani Iyer said, “The job of a musician is a difficult one. If you want to score a rank in your school sudies or so, you can work hard for a few months and succeed. But if you don’t play well today, it will be said that you played well yesterday, but not today. So the job of a musician is a difficult job, that involves an examination on a daily basis. So there is only one way to succeed in it. Keep thinking about the great people. So you will ask me, ‘
Our rational intuition will be to state that one can never become a great artist if he keeps thinking about great people instead of doing dedicated and meticulous practice. But I believe that, adoration is what is primarily; for a mridangist, the finger will obey him once he can adore a great mridangist sincerely. Talent is in a way a state of unconsciousness when you don’t know what you are doing, but undoubtedly, you are doing the best. If you can measure what you do, it is not talent. A genius doesn’t know that he is a genius, that’s why he is called a genius.
To be contd….
(A writing experience of full personal satisfaction, will require many days of thinking and editing. It creates a big void in consistency in writing, when I wish to make an article appear perfect to me; use the best words to bring out the charisma of the personality, whom I talk about; So I guess it is better to post out the scribblings, so atleast a momentary satisfaction is gained, even though the article remains unfinished and immature. It’s like a movie shot in a single take; but it has it’s own beauty I believe.
The ‘to be contd’ should excuse my discontinuity in thoughts and inconsistency in writing due to innate sluggishness.
