A BIRTHDAY REMEMBERANCE TO THE TRAIL BLAZER

Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar was, in the words of a contemporary, the "architect and maker of modern Carnatic music. He was the torchbearer of one of the many styles that were emerging then. It is a pity that our generation never got to watch his concerts live and interact with him. But technology has facilitated us in our quest to listen and learn by getting us numerous recordings and accounts of his lifestyle which are indeed a very valuable source to learn about the Sangeeta Upasaka.

His life and music followed the movement of the oonjal, the swing. In fact it is a well known fact that he spent all his time singing and swinging! In the 1920s he introduced the shortened kutcheri as we know it today, with the varnam, a few short krtis, the mid-section consisting of a main raga and krtis followed by a ragam-tanam-pallavi, and the tukkadas towards the end. With intense discipline and practice he developed an enviable repertoire: it is rumoured that he knew the most number of songs, almost a hundred, in the Raga Todi alone. His hallmark was the madhyamakala or medium tempo. Tricky and very difficult to emulate, he maintained this unique tempo throughout the concert and held the audience in complete attention.
It was his belief that the essence of Carnatic music was to convey raga bhava, and the alapana would reflect the embodiment of the krti to follow. So while his raga alapana was brief, the perception was that people could actually guess which song he was going to sing by listening to the alapana. This is enough proof that every time he sang a particular Raga, it would always sound refreshingly new.

Humility as a pose and artifice, stood self - indicted and self exposed. He always attributed his "humble" success to the great masters like his Guru Poochi Iyengar, Thirukodikaval Krishna Iyer and others. How he would spend the time on a performance day, avoiding sleep in the afternoon and doing musical dhyanam all the time, indicate what reverence he had for the Art.

Ariyakudi mama’s music is the touch-stone on which we can judge the standard of the music of others, probably because, it is in the truest and basic traditions of our classical music. In the words of Shri G N Balasubramaniam, a contemporary who considered Ariyakudi his guru, ‘his is probably the one instance of a unique wedlock of seeming incompatibles, "sastra" and "sravya" and tradition and modernity’. He believed that music was a divine gift that God in His manifestation as Nada Brahman gave to the world. He was a true believer in using the Tambura shruti and was noted saying that, of the instruments of shruti, there is none to excel the Tambura. Upholding the  tradition and classicism of Carnatic Music were the sole meaning of his music filled life. He felt that it is quite possible to please the hearers without transgressing the bounds of tradition after seeing many musicians caught in the desire to cater to the taste of the audience. He gave a lot of importance to Sahitya bhava and considered any performance soulless if a musician did not have the knowledge of the Sahityam.

It is my good fortune that under a scholarship scheme, I am able to learn from one of his foremost disciples and one who has observed him from a very close range, Shri Alepey Venkatesan. Even if Ariyakudi mama left us long time back, his music lived and will live. Well, history will never change…

PS : Ideas and certain points courtesy Ariyakudi’s presidential address at The Music Academy and ‘Voices Within’.