The golden melody

Bharat Ratna M.S. Subbulakshmi’s has been a life and a music of liberation. It may not appear so at first sight. But this octogenarian musician, clad in ultra-traditional attire and who appears a picture of conservative propriety, has been a revolutionary in many ways. Preceded by her mother, veena virtuoso Dhanammal, she became part of a socio-cultural movement for emancipation, the first of the feminine voices in Carnatic concert music. She was followed by others like purist D.K. Pattammal, the brilliant N.C. Vasanthakokilam, whose life was so tragically cut short, and M.L. Vasanthakumari, but Subbulakshmi’s mellifluous strains have never faded away in the 60 years that she has been singing publicly. She was also among the few who strove to free southern classical music from the conventions and constraints that had rendered it obscure for the millions. This she did in many ways, but largely by attaching importance to diction. Unlike her peers, she realised that the greatness of music often lay in the words that were set to music. While this helped to give Tamil its due place in Carnatic music, it also made her renditions in other languages something of a rediscovery for rapt listeners. Besides, her rare emotional expressiveness helped further in popularising her classical oeuvre. Indeed, the bhava, or feeling, she put into her singing made it akin to bhakti poetry in its unaffected, unrestrained spontaneity.

The cause of good music was served, too, by her semi-classical songs redolent with seductive charm, including those she sang in films like Shakuntala (along with famed fellow-musician G.N. Balasubramanian) and, of course, the landmark Meera. This served to free it from regional confines. Long before A.R. Rahman made an appearance, her still-haunting numbers from the cinematic homage to Meera, Rajasthan’s saint-poetess, carried southern strains well beyond the Vindhyas. MS followed this up by venturing beyond the bounds of Carnatic music with a well-received album of Meera bhajans. She was also the first to take Indian music to the West, and to the world community at the United Nations, although she was far too deeply rooted in the classical tradition to attempt anything like today’s fusion music. Far too often, MS is recalled by the tributes that prominent people have paid her. But a greater testimony to her achievements lies in the fact that her voice lingers on even 50 years after it captured the sounds of Krishna’s flute wafting in the wind and in the suprabhatams that greet many a middle-class home even today.

When India’s highest civilian honour was awarded posthumously to former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran some years ago, it created an instant controversy. The present award, in contrast, strikes a chord of approval across the country. It does this because it symbolises a hope, however slender, that music can help to save the nation’s soul, even in these trying times when moral bankruptcy stares it in the face. That M.S. Subbulakshmi can achieve this is an everlasting tribute to the magic of her music.