|
|
|
Kalpagam Swaminathan -
A passionate veena vidushi
She is well into her 80s. But the age has not mellowed her passion
for veena. The teacher par excellence is still willing to take
on newer students! She was conferred the title Acharya Choodamani
by Sri Krishna Gana Sabha in 2005. Noted musicologist Professor
P. Sambamurthy once called her 'Saveri Kalpagam'. Not just that.
Kalpagam is acknowledged as an authority on Dikshitar kritis.
|
Kalpagam Swaminathan performing at
the Naada Inbam |
Kalpagam Swaminathan performed Dikshitar's
Tyagaraja Vibhakthi kritis at Naada Inbam in Chennai recently.
She is slated to give a veena performance at the Cleveland Tyagaraja
Aradhana on March 23, 2008. The grand old veena artiste is set
to perform in the U.S. for the first time, perhaps.
Endowed with Tanjavur-style of Veena playing technique, Kalpagam
Swaminathan goes down the memory lane in a chat with Sudha Jagannathan.
Formative years
I was born in a village called Sethalapathi. Lord Rama was believed
to have performed libations of water to his father King Dasaratha
here. It was known as Thilatarpana Kuzhi. It came to be called
as Sethalapathi. It is 15 miles from Mayavaram. From the village
Poonthotam, one has to go to this place. There is also a temple
for Goddess Saraswathi in Kothanoor, a near-by village. There
is a river “Arasilaru” here. I stayed in the village
till I was eight. When my father passed away, I was just 1-1/2
years old. We didn’t have very close relatives to take
care of us. I had an uncle named Vaidyanatha Swamy. He was a
professor in Mathematics. He is no more now. He passed away
in 1960. He was studying in Germany. He came to know of our
plight only when he came to our village. When he saw us, he
requested us to come to Madras. My mother was quite young then.
She was hardly 22 years. I was born at that time. My uncle felt
it wiser for us to be in Madras and, hence, we had all shifted
there. I came to Madras when I was eight. Till then, I never
knew about school teaching. But I had a gifted knowledge in
music. My mother had learnt harmonium in those days. She used
to sing quite well.
Learning Experience
I started learning music from the age of six. My mother had
a lot of knowledge in music. She had so much knowledge in music
that she was even capable of training me in big kritis that
could be performed on a stage. My mother’s name is Abayambal.
There was one Srinivasan Pichumani abroad. I didn’t know
him. Even he did not know me. He and others had learnt Navavarana
kritis from my mother. After I came to Madras, I had learnt
important kritis of Muthuswamy Dikshitar. Shri Ananthakrishna
Iyer, who came from the lineage of Muthuswamy Dikshitar, taught
me these. He was my uncle’s friend. He was known as Kaladaikuruchi
Ananthakrishna Iyer. When I came to Madras, I could not go to
school directly without prior education. I was already eight
years by then. So I had to undergo tuition. Only thereafter,
I was put formally in a corporation school. I joined standard
five there. All these were possible, thanks to my eldest uncle.
I was then put to the veena class. After attending my school,
I used to go to the veena class daily. We used to have veena
class for an hour and another hour was dedicated to vocal music.
It was the beginning stage in the veena. We had to know the
playing technique. Whatever we sing, we couldn’t reproduce
in the veena easily. Veena has got a procedure of it’s
own. From the beginning, I learnt it with lot of dedication.
I never missed going to school even for a day. First, I went
to a corporation school and later on to the National Girls High
School. I felt it very interesting to read and learn English
as I did not study it before. Once our teacher asked us the
meaning of “Rosy”. Everybody looked blank. Suddenly
I got up and replied, “She was rose in colour.”
I couldn’t explain that her complexion was rose etc. Immediately,
I was promoted to the next class for the subject English. I
had to study in the same class for other subjects. It is funny
to remember these. I went to veena class punctually. Kaladaikuruchi
Vedantha Bagavathar and others conducted exams in veena. They
all were the colleagues of my guru. He tested us in innovative
ways. He would ask me to tune the veena. He would then ask funny
questions. “I am flying in an aeroplane and what is the
shruti of it?’’ he would ask. I used to feel scared
when I see him. Thanks to these tests, I reached a position.
But I didn’t go to competition for a long time. I had
seen a veena competition and the way it was conducted. It then
occurred to me that even I knew to play a little veena. Let
me also go and play there, I felt. I didn’t have a good
veena. There was a principal in Queen Mary’s College.
Her name was Bhavani Swaminathan. She couldn’t hear properly.
The veena I had was not of good quality. The sound was not clearly
audible. Someone named Rajalakshmi… I don’t remember
exactly, who brought a good veena with a velvette covering and
played well to win the prize. I thought the judges had given
the prize to a deserving candidate only. She had played better
than me. I should play much better I thought. When I got down
from the stage, Vidya Shankar’s father C.S.Iyer quipped,
`` What Kalpam? Don’t you have any other veena?’’
``I would have given Vidya’s veena had I known that you
are also competing,’’ he went on to say. ``Why did
you play in this? You played well but it was not audible,’’
he said. I sensed that many people known to the winner were
around us. So I felt a little delicate at his comments. I was
not so close to him. Hence, I told him that I would accept his
offer afterwards. And, I quickly fled the place and headed home.
Participating in competition
After that, I didn’t participate in any competition for
quite a long time. All of a sudden, I thought that I must participate
in that year’s competition. At the time of competition,
however, I had a viral typhoid. I had applied for vocal and
veena competitions. I had prepared a separate list of kritis
for each contest. I knew all kritis well. Yet, I felt nervous.
Hence, I selected small kritis to play in the veena. I thought
I could also display Tanam in the veena. I got the first prize.
But I wasn’t even in a position to play. T.L.Venkatramaiyer
saw me in the hall and enquired, “Are you from the hospital
right now?’’ I was taken aback. I was so sick then.
My condition was so bad that I was given a bath and put on to
the bed in my room by my mother. The competition happened during
this time. I went in a rickshaw. I was lying at the back with
pillows and my sister came along in another rickshaw with the
veena. When I reached the competition hall, I barely had any
strength. I felt very weak.
My mother told me that she was glad that I was alive. She said
I could participate in the next year’s competition. I
told her that I had applied for both veena and vocal contests
and that my friends and others would make fun of me if I did
not take part in the competition. People would have said that
if there were to be a dance competition, Kalpagam would have
applied for that as well but would not have appeared. I was
not in a position to sing. I was the first candidate in the
veena contest. The judge was ‘Maharajapuram Viswanatha
Iyer’. My sister fetched the veena for me and kept it
on the stage and left. She asked me if she could set the shruti.
I told her I would do it myself. I felt I must have cut a sorry
figure with my appearance. I could sense some guys in the audience
murmuring something about me. When I tuned the shruti, there
was a complete silence. Then they asked me to play “Intachala”
Varnam in Begada ragam in Adi tala. I played it. Then they asked
the organizers to fetch my list of kritis for the competition.
They seemed to have lost the list of kritis that I had submitted
for my veena recital. Instead, they had fetched the list of
kritis that I had given for the vocal competition. I told them
that I had given an entirely different list for veena. But they
could not locate it. I agreed to play from the vocal list that
I had given them. I knew I could do it. They asked me to play
“Balagopala”. Then they asked for Dhanyasi and a
few other ragas. Then they asked for Sahana. I brought the nuances
of the raga within two-to-three minutes. As I was expecting
them to ask more ragas, they signaled me to end.
Saveri Kalpagam
Prof. Sambamurthy, Head of the Department in Music (Madras),
and my uncle, who was the Head of the Department in Mathematics,
used to communicate with each other. My uncle enquired if I
(his niece) could do some exams in music. He asked Sambamurthy
about those exams. There was a higher grade exam and a lower
grade one. In lower grade, Swaravali, Alamkaram and the like
formed the syllabus. My uncle told him that I could do better
than this. The students required two years for lower and higher
grades examinations. But I directly went to the higher exam.
There was only four months left for the exams. I didn’t
know much about the theory part. I did not even know Sa means
Sadja. My uncle bought me one or two books and asked me to sit
in the room upstairs and read it. He told me not to gossip with
my mother and other relatives in the house. I was just readying
to learn that `Sa’ meant Sadja. At this level, I was going
to take a higher exam! I got a first class in the higher grade
exams. A part of the syllabus contained Raga Alapana and Kalpana
swaras. I told my uncle that I needed a teacher to learn these.
He laughed thunderously as if the building would collapse. I
could not understand what was wrong in the question. He pointed
to the Manodarma and Kalpitha Sangeetham. Geetham, Swarajathi,
Varnam etc are Kalpita Sangeetham. Manodarma meant it should
be creative. It had to come on its own. Even kalpana swaras
also had to come with the laya or tala. If the Manodarma Sangeetha
was learnt from the teacher, it would become his Manodarma and
not mine, he reasoned. I told this to my mother. My mother told
me that we would attend as many veena concerts as possible.
I listened to many veena concerts. I by-hearted some of those
kritis played in concerts. My mind did not agree with the way
they played. In those days, there was one Muluku Sivananda Sastry
from Andhra Pradesh. He played the Andhra bani, which was entirely
different. I enjoyed playing the Tanjavur bani. Veena playing
should be of a high standard. Hence, I told my mother I could
enjoy only a few of those concerts. My mother told me to listen
to the All-India Radio for vocal and veena concerts. After listening
quite a while on the radio, I went to take up the exam in front
of Prof. Sambamurthy. He asked me to sing a Varnam. I glanced
to see if they appreciated my music. Then he asked me to sing
Saveri. I felt nervous. As I sang, I gained confidence. I did
sanchara in the Sadja and traveled the upper octave. In those
days, there was one Todi Seetharamaayya who sang the Todi raga
for eight days. He praised me and said, ``Not bad. I think you
can be called Saveri Kalpagam.’’ I felt happy when
I came out. I sang at the age of 11 in the Radio. T.L.Venkatrama
Iyer took me there. There was no All India Radio at that time.
There was this music for park-goers broadcast through radio.
Her teachers
Ananthakrishna Iyer was my guru. I learnt for only three
years from him. My mother also had aught me music. She also
learnt veena as I was learning that instrument. She could play
harmonium with gamakas. For any instrument, vocal is the base.
Nobody can deny this. I followed a technique. The way I play
will seem entirely different. But the result will give a vocalized
music in veena. For raga Hindolam, "Panchamam" should not be
heard - " ni da ma " - but I will place my fingers on the panchama.
It cannot be explained unless you know the technique. The Mysore
bani differs. So does the Andhra bani. They won't touch the
panchama and Sadja when they play. Veena has perished because
we don't understand the technique behind this. We were taught
the tala for all the three speeds. Nowadays, tala is not given
much importance. In veena, first we play the swaras. The keerthana
(sahitya) will be played separately. When you teach the children
in an interesting way, they would surely like it.
I did not have a father to guide as I lost him very early. My
uncle was a Maths professor. He took utmost care to do his duty
and was pre-occupied with his profession. There was no one to
help me. What could my mother do? I had played at the Music
Academy continuously for four years. Veena player E.Gayatri’s
mother was my student. I taught her when she came to Kalakshetra
as my student. She stayed with me for two years. She had played
along with me in concerts. Later on, she joined Chittibabu.
Kalakshetra days
There was this Rajalakshmi Narayanan, who worked as my
assistant in the college. It was a great thing when I went to
the college. I got the first prize in the college. S. Balachander's
father came to my house and asked me to play the "Intachala"
varnam. He said that there was a vacancy in Kalakshetra. The
style of my playing impressed him very much. I could not agree
to take up the teaching profession. What did I know about teaching?
I thought then. I did not go to the Kalakshetra as requested
by him. He came to my house and regretted to my mother about
this. My mother was angry with me. She asked me to just apply
for the post. So I had to apply. Within a day or two, I was
called for the interview. When I went to Kalakshetra, I was
weak following a fever. Budalur Krishnamurthy Sastri was present
there with a Gotuvadya. He asked me: "Are you the one who had
come for the interview?'' He tuned the veena for me and asked
to check it. I was checking the level of shruthi. At the same
moment, there appeared Tiger Varadachari. Sundaram Iyer, Balachander's
father, advised me that in Kalakshtra singing was mainly for
dance. He said Tiger Varadachari would ask me to sing. Iyer
advised me to sing one or two songs and take rest. Predictably,
Tiger Varadachari asked me to sing. He also listened to my veena.
As I was going away from the Kalakshtra, the peon came running
towards me. He told me that Tiger Varadachari had asked me to
come for the job the next day. I was surprised and didn't expect
this. Afterwards, I went and told Rukmini Devi and asked for
two month's time. The prayer at Kalakshetra those days began
at 8.00 a.m. I was having a small kid at that time. I was staying
far away from the place. Hence, I said I could not be present
there in time. My husband had a traveling job. So it would be
difficult to manage. My husband was my uncle and my mother's
brother. I traveled with Rukmini Devi on tours. I played for
the children who had even performed the dance before Pandit
Nehru. I used to play and sing for the dance. That was the reason
why I didn't give solo performance. There was one K.S.Iyer from
HMV, who requested me to give an audio album. There is no other
album of mine at all. Dr. Priya is my student in Chicago. I
have played in an album with her. That was only the recording
I had done.
Her repertoire
My guru taught me Abayambal Navavaranams, Kamalamaba's
and group kritis consisting of Navagraha kritis and two types
of Panchalinga kritis. I learnt from Ananthakrishna Iyer of
Dikshitar lineage. Ambi Dikshitar was a Dikshitar's disciple
.I also learnt from T.L.Venkatrama Iyer, who learnt from Ambi
Dikshitar. I had played with Budalur Krishnamurthy Sastri after
my appointment at the Kalakshetra. I also learnt a few kritis
(vocal) from Musiri Subramanya Iyer.
Post your comments
Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail
|
|
|
|
|
