MS Subbulakshmi: The woman and the musician behind the icon

Unfortunately, adjacent today, references to doyens from the Isai Vellalar assemblage specified arsenic M S Subbulakshmi and Balasaraswati bring up their Devadasi household lineage.

M S Subbulakshmi captured the imaginativeness of the caller federation successful the making erstwhile Meera, directed by the American Ellis R Dungan, was released successful 1945. Express archive photo

A vigorous run and an Act

Thanks to a vigorous run by 1 of the members of the legislative assembly of Madras, Muthulakshmi Reddy, on with the enactment of Periyar and different Dravidian question leaders and members of the Isai Vellalar assemblage specified arsenic Muvalur Ramamirtham Ammal, the strategy was abolished with the promulgation of the Madras Devadasi (Prevention of Dedication) Act, 1947.

Isai Vellalars mislaid their hereditary sources of livelihood connected relationship of 2 large factors: too the promulgation of the Madras Devadasi (Prevention of Dedication) Act, the appropriation of their hereditary arts by the Brahmins done the organization enactment of the Music Academy and sabhas. The struggles and triumphs of Balasaraswati, the past exponent of Sadirattam (the creation of the Devadasis) during the 1940s-1980s are good documented by her son-in-law and a erstwhile prof of musicology successful the US, Douglas Knight. Bharatanatyam emerged during the archetypal portion of past period owed to the attempts of Rukmani Arundale and the bureau bearers of Music Academy specified arsenic E Krishna Iyer to marque the creation of Devadasis (sadir attam) “respectable”.

It’s with this humanities inheritance successful caput that we request to imagine/write/read/reflect connected idiosyncratic similar M S Subbulakshmi. Her nationalist representation successful 2024 hovers astir modern controversies specified arsenic the grant named aft her by Music Academy and the awardee, T M Krishna, who whitethorn not person it due to the fact that of the Madras High Court judgement which cites the volition of M S Subbulakshmi.

The well-known humanities facts of a property similar her are straightforward: She was calved successful Madurai connected September 16, 1916, to a well-known Isai Vellalar veena player, Shanmugavadivu, and died successful Chennai connected December 11, 2004. She joined T Sadasivam, a nationalist relations idiosyncratic who was intimately associated with the Kalki Krishnamurthy household that published the Kalki mag She recorded her archetypal medium astatine the property of 10 and gave a nationalist show astatine the Music Academy of her bhajan astatine the property of 13. She was an histrion excessively and worked successful 5 films, including the well-known Meera (1945). She made her movie debut with Sevasadan successful 1938.

M S Subbulakshmi was an articulate subordinate of the Tamil Isai Movement. Launched by the laminitis of Annamalai University, Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar successful 1941, the question sought to springiness Tamil a salient abstraction successful Carnatic euphony concerts. Express archive photograph by VIdyavraja

M S, the rebel

But determination are different little-known humanities facts of her property that convey a antithetic representation of her. She was a rebel during the 1940s, erstwhile she took cudgels against the prevailing signifier of singing successful Carnatic euphony concerts successful Telugu, Kannada and Sanskrit; she alternatively sang successful Tamil.

M S Subbulakshmi was an articulate subordinate of the Tamil Isai Movement. Launched by the laminitis of Annamalai University, Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar successful 1941, the question sought to springiness Tamil a salient abstraction successful Carnatic euphony concerts. Her passionate engagement with the question was what invited the infamous five-year prohibition connected her by the Music Academy.

Her sonorous dependable was her hallmark. It had a transportation that was unmatched by her contemporaries specified arsenic D K Pattammal and M L Vasantakumari, with whom she shared an admirable nonrecreational rapport.

M S Subbulakshmi captured the imaginativeness of the caller federation successful the making erstwhile Meera, directed by the American Ellis R Dungan, was released successful 1945.

Photographs of her with Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, too pictures of M Karunanidhi and C N Annadurai listening to her concerts bring live a property who had a magical aura to hindrance leaders, fans and, consequently, a federation that was looking for an “ideal” pistillate icon. This launched her connected the planetary circuit and the nationalist circuit of concerts. Tamil women started buying her favourite bluish vaira oosi Kanchipuram sarees and started draping their jasmine flowers arsenic she did. MS Blue became a caller colour to ideate one’s saree successful Tamil Nadu. However, during the aboriginal decades, arsenic she became the look of Carnatic music, she moved distant from Tamil Isai, singing mostly Telugu and Sanskrit compositions and bhajans.

Her camaraderie with Balasaraswati is good captured successful a fashionable representation of some of them smoking cigarettes (was it a prank?).

She comes retired arsenic an autarkic decision-maker astatine times. One of these instances was erstwhile she went backmost connected her ain determination not to sing astatine immoderate nationalist programme and accepted the invitation of a apical authoritative of the Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam to sing the verses of Annamacharya, a 15th period Telugu composer. Her album, Balaji Pancharatnamala, which was released successful 1979, ended up changing her philharmonic travel forever.

From a sabha performance singer, she transformed into an ace vocalist of bhajans. Her dependable and euphony crossed the threshold of the sabhas and wafted done nationalist spaces and home spaces. Her renditions of Suprabatham, which is sung to aftermath up Lord Venkateswara during the aboriginal greeting hours astatine the Tirupati Tirumala temple, made her dependable a greeting ritual each Saturday successful the homes of the Vaishnavite families of southbound India.

Personal letters and a fortress

She is not known for her interviews successful the property and I person not travel crossed immoderate large interrogation by her connected captious topics of her beingness and music. There is simply a notation of her idiosyncratic letters (numbering 20) by journalist-author T J S George successful the appendix of his publication connected M S Subbulakshmi (2016). They were addressed to G N Balasubramaniam, a starring Carnatic instrumentalist and her counterpart successful the film, Sakuntalai (1940), with whom she was evidently successful love. But it was Sadasivam who ended up marrying her. It was a matrimony that helped her standard large nonrecreational heights, but made her a heavy guarded subject. According to T J S George, “the lack of immoderate benignant of records astir M S Subbulakshmi’s beingness and the fortress erected astir her by her husband, Tyagaraja Sadasivam,” made the probe connected her “virtually impossible”. He further said: “Sadasivam controlled each entree and each accusation truthful tightly that thing was ever known that Sadasivam did not privation known.”

Her philharmonic concerts came to an extremity with the decease of her hubby successful 1997. She passed distant aft a little hospitalisation successful 2004.

It would beryllium an injustice to ideate her lone arsenic a celebrated Carnatic vocalist from Tamil Nadu. She, similar galore celebrities of her kind, defies categorisation and bracketing. She had the close to take her partner, her mode of beingness and her mode of singing and that indispensable beryllium respected. Trying to ideate her from immoderate different perspective, peculiarly the ideological affiliations of modern subjects, is apt to distort her idiosyncratic past and the tone of a pistillate creator who roseate from precise humble beginnings. Unlike Rukmani Arundale oregon galore of her contemporaries oregon present-day artists, she was not from privileged backgrounds. Her sacrifices and struggles besides necessitate a spot successful our imagination.

The writer is Professor, Department of Media and Communication, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur