Making Memories with Music
Two years ago, on the 16th of Jan, 2023, I lost a great friend and mentor who also happened to be my father. It was extremely sudden and not a day goes by when I don’t spend a few minutes thinking about him. But there is nothing that reminds me of him more than music.
My father was a simple man. He grew up in a large family surrounded by brothers and sisters. His mother loved South Indian classical (Carnatic) music and imbibed it in him through attending carnatic music concerts. My father used to tell stories about how his mother and he would attend these concerts often held in temples after the family dinner was done. My father also learned music vicariously through listening to his sisters learn from a teacher who came home. As a result, he was rich in his experiences with music although he himself never formally learned it.
Listening to music on his phone during his last visit to the US
From the time I can remember, we listened to music at home. Be it on the radio during breakfast every morning when we tuned to Abdul Hameed introduce one Ilayaraja melody after the other on Radio Ceylon or evenings filled with Carnatic music playing from 60 and 90 minute tapes which my father collected over the years. I remember going with my dad in his two-wheeler during his lunch break to visit some of his close collector buddies where we spent precious minutes listening to rare house concert tapes recorded by someone sitting in the front row. In the evenings we would listen to old Hindi movie music on tapes that my late uncle would ship to us from Delhi where he bought them from an upstart pirated tape seller in Delhi (that small shop would go on to become the behemoth T-Series). We listened to Kashmir Ki Kali, Junglee and Aradhana so much that the tapes eventually tore off. And while there was a lot of space for tamil and old hindi film hits, carnatic music was always the last thing we listened to while going to bed. Every single night.
Concerts were also a big deal. While my hometown of Coimbatore did not have a lot of December season concerts like Chennai, we had a healthy set of concerts throughout the year. I fondly remember the ITC Concerts at Corporation Kalaiarangam. My father, understanding the impatient kid that I was, would indulge me with a Fanta or a bhel-puri at a nearby store in R.S.Puram during the thani aavarthanam. I remember us going to visit Maharajapuram Santhanam the morning after an ITC concert only to hear of his horrific death in a car accident few days later. I remember us exchanging notes with the late Kadri Gopalnath in the back of a car on the ride back after a fantastic concert where he presented his crowd-pleasers like Nagumo and Bhagyadalakshmi Baramma. And of course, attending a concert organized by Spic-Macay with the budding star of that era - now my son’s Paramaguru Sri Neyeli Santhanagopalan. A few years later, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, my alma mater started organizing Pongal concerts which my father would emcee for the first few years. I remember one year when a young T.M.Krishna and Sanjay Subrahmanyan delivered breathtaking concerts on back to back days.
And then there was the memorable event when the late Sri Maharajapuram Santhanam presented bhajans composed by Pujya Sri Dayananda Saraswathi for the first time. Our family visited Swamiji in Anaikatti the previous day to get a preview of the songs and Swamiji gave his personal views on his compositions that my father presented on stage during the concert. While many of those songs are now rendered in concerts (Bho Shambho anyone), I still remember the first time I heard them live with my father’s introduction preceding the rendition of each song ( I am still hunting for the original recording of that event with my father’s voice).
Today, as I reflect on the past two years of life without my father’s physical presence, I am reminded that he lives with me through the experiences we shared listening to thousands of hours of music - at home and in live concerts. Our shared love for the one-of-a-kind voice that was MDR, the crowd pleasing concerts of Kadri Gopalnath and Maharajapuram Santhanam, the always high quality concerts of T.V.Sankaranarayanan which were a throwback to his late uncle Madurai Mani Iyer whose concerts my father had the privilege of attending many times, the dependable KVN mama, the maverick genius of Balamuralikrishna, the inimitable ways of Lalgudi Jayaraman, T.N.Krishnan, Palghat Raghu and Umayalapuram Sivaraman that elevated concerts to a whole new level, and our personal favorites - DKJ and DKP, rendering wholesome krithis in chaste tamizh. Many of the ragams I enjoy today are those that my father loved and effectively inculcated in me over my early years - Hindolam, Darbari Kanada, Kambhoji, Ananda Bhairavi, Bilahari, Yamuna Kalyani, Hamir Kalyani, Kunthalavarali and more.
In his later years, my father was my son’s biggest fan when it came to his music. Everytime I sent a recording of my son from one of his recitals, my father would proudly share it with all his music circle friends, gather feedback and share it with my son. My son was fortunate to perform multiple times at concerts where my father was in the audience. The grandfather’s pride was something to behold.
My father emceeing my son’s first concert in India that he helped organize at our local temple.
I can vividly remember my father’s rendition of Swami Dayananda’s favorite “Darshan do ghanshyam more”. We made lovely memories through our shared love for music. And for that I am eternally grateful to him.