MAIN FEATURE MADRAS KANNAN“I am what I am because of my father and my guru” Madras A. Kannan was a familiar name to aficionados of Carnatic music concerts in the 1950s and 1960s, especially listeners of All India Radio, where he was a staff artiste of repute. A contemporary of Palghat Mani Iyer and Palani Subramania Pillai, he accompanied all the leading vocalists of the period on the mridanga – Ariyakudi, Semmangudi, GNB, Maharajapuram, T.R. Mahalingam and above all Dandapani Desigar, in whose concerts Kannan was a more or less permanent fixture. Sruti correspondent Lalitha Ram met Madras Kannan in January 2010 in his V.M. Street, Mylapore, apartment, after much effort to trace the phone number of the reclusive nonagenarian mridanga vidwan and much searching for his house. Shy of the limelight, Kannan was reluctant to meet Lalitha Ram, and yielded the interview only after constant pestering. Mridanga maestro MADRAS A. KANNAN in conversation with LALITHA RAM Young Madras A. Kannan Lalitha Ram writes: K annan greeted me at the door. Neatly clad in a silk kurta and a spotless white dhoti, Kannan looked all set to leave for a concert. My doubts were reinforced when I saw the grand angavastram on his shoulders and several chains, including a navaratna haaram with a tiger claw pendant, adorning his chest. Kannan’s opening remarks were accompanied by childlike astonishment. He said, “In television interviews, the interviewee recounts even the minutest details of his past, as if watching his life on a video tape. I will never be able to do that. It may take several hours for me to recollect incidents in my life. I hope you are in no hurry.” I was relieved to know he was not leaving and when I mentioned what went through my mind when he opened the door, he smiled. “I am always dressed like this. My father brought me up this way”. “When Semmangudi and I were neighbours on Lloyd’s 11 l SRUTI August 2011 MAIN FEATURE Road, I surprised him by informing him I had listened to a concert of his with Dakshinamurthi Pillai accompanying him on the mridanga. He asked me how old I was. I replied, “I reveal my age only to my doctor”. Kannan had a twinkle in his eyes as he recalled the story. For a man born in 1920, Madras Kannan looks supremely young. He says, “Age has caught up with me. I have difficulty in carrying out activities that were easier to do a few years ago. But, thanks to the grace of my father and my guru, even today my fingers can play on the mridanga what my mind says.” While most musicians of Kannan’s generation hailed from the Kaveri belt, he was born in Royapettah, Madras. He did not belong to a traditional musical family. His father, Aadimoolam was a businessman with a deep interest in music and spirituality. Kannan thinks hard but in vain to recall his father’s line of business, “Actually I don’t remember. I started playing in concerts from a very young age and by that time my father had given up his business and was concentrating on building my career.” Kannan’s initiation into music owed thanks to the recommendation of the headmaster of the primary school where he studied. “He noticed me drumming on the table and advised my father to put me through formal musical training. On an auspicious day, I started learning veena and vocal music from Sri Krishnaswami Naidu and mridanga from Sri Pitambara Desai. Those days we believed that if you wanted to become an Kannan playing the mridanga for Emani Sankara Sastri expert in one field, you had to give up others. So I decided to focus on the mridanga.” Pitambara Desai was a popular guru with expertise in the violin, veena, mridanga, tavil and nagaswaram. Madras Venu Naicker and Govindasami Naicker were some of his star disciples. A frequent visitor to Tiruvannamalai, Desai took Kannan there to seek Ramana Maharishi’s blessings before his formal arangetram. “Tiger Varadachariar sang for my debut,” recalls Kannan. “Parur Sundaram Iyer was on the violin and my guru accompanied me on the mridanga. Immediately after my debut, my guru took sanyasa.” 12 l SRUTI August 2011 MAIN FEATURE Aadimoolam was a worried man when Pitambara Desai retired. He had dreamt of a career in music for his son. Like many connoisseurs of his generation, he worshipped Ariyakudi and Dakshinamurthi Pillai and met them whenever they came to Chennai to perform. On one of these occasions, Aadimoolam approached Dakshinamurthi Pillai and sought his guidance. Dakshinamurthi Pillai promised to take care of Kannan’s future and within a few months arranged for his training under Tanjavur Ramadas Rao. “Ramadas Rao, who had heard me in a concert with Chittoor Subramania Pillai soon after my debut, had no hesitation in accepting me as his student,” Kannan recalls. “As I was an only child and my mother had passed away when I was very young, there was fierce resistance from family to the idea of my taking up gurukulavasam in Tanjavur, especially as. a career in music was not considered respectable. But my father was a very determined man. If not for his firm stand, I would not have taken music as a profession.” Kannan quit school during the years of his gurukulavasam in Tanjavur. Later, upon coming back to Chennai, he joined the Hindu High School, Triplicane. Our conversation slowly drifted towards Ramadas Rao’s playing style. “Belonging to the famous Tanjavur percussion school, he learnt the art from Narayanasami Appa. His specialty was his fingering and the nadam he produced. Watching him, it was impossible to make out that he was actually playing the instrument. His hands hardly moved, while the gentle movement of his fingers created magic. Till today I’ve not seen anyone achieve the balance my guru did between his left and right sides. I’ve seen both Palghat Mani Iyer and Palani Subramania Pillai attentively listening to my guru’s playing on several occasions. The beauty of his playing was that it would sound so simple. You realised how deceptive it was only when you tried to play what he played. But for all his greatness, he remained a simple man.” Dakshinamurthi Pillai had a special liking for Kannan and visited Ramadas Rao whenever he was in Tanjavur to check on Kannan’s progress. “Many artists have achieved very high levels of scholarship in mridanga, but Dakshinamurthi Pillai was not just an artist. He had reached spiritual heights attained by siddha purusha-s through his mridanga and khanjira playing. Have you heard the tevaram composition, Kadalagi 13 l SRUTI August 2011 kasindurugi ? It is an emotional outpouring that can move anyone who reads it. Pillai was able to create the same effect with his percussion.” Kannan remembers a concert in which he shared the stage briefly with Dakshinamurthi Pillai, “It happened in 1935 during the Congress exhibition. Parur Sundaram Iyer and Dakshinamuthi Pillai were scheduled to accompany Tiger Varadachariar. Unfortunately, Dakshinamurthi Pillai’s train got delayed. Tiger suggested my name as the replacement as I had already accompanied him. The concert started and after an hour or so Tiger gave me a chance to play a tani avartanam. Just as I completed it, Dakshinamuthi Pillai entered the hall. I started to rise and make way for him. He came on stage, sat next to me and asked me to continue playing. After Tiger finished the next song, Dakshinamurthi Pillai continued maintaining the tala and asked me to play a tani. I was very embarrassed as I had just played one. With Tiger too egging me on, I played a short tani. Afterwards, Dakshinamurthi Pillai declared that I would blossom as his true ward. (Idu maadiri (pointing to himself ), adu varum (pointing to me). After that concert ‘Master Kannan’ became a popular name.” In the same year, Kannan accompanied Dwaram Venkataswami Naidu at Allahabad in an all India music conference. When Dwaram presented him with a gold medal as a token of his appreciation, Master Kannan had arrived. Earlier, invited in 1932 to Mysore to perform at the MAIN FEATURE Dussera festival, Kannan accompanied Hariikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavatar, Gottuvadyam Narayana Iyengar and Veena Subbanna there. The Maharaja of Mysore who honoured him with a shawl, continued to invite him in the following years too. Even as a teenager, Kannan had accompanied the likes of Naina Pillai and was a regular accompanist of Chittoor Subramania Pillai. “Anyone who understood laya intricacies could follow Chittoor’s singing. But Naina Pillai’s kanakku could baffle even the well-informed. His complexities were not explicit, but even a person with no knowledge in laya was able to appreciate his music just for the raga bhava,” says Kannan. Naina Pillai’s style left a deep impact on Kannan’s mridanga playing. According to experts of the time, the very attribute that he described in Naina Pillai’s music was the hallmark of Kannan’s art too. Even before the arrival of All India Radio, Madras Kannan had given several performances for the Madras Corporation Radio. In 1943, he joined AIR as a staff artist upon the insistence of Station Director Vijikrishnan, a grandson of Veena Dhanammal. “When AIR introduced ragam-tanam-pallavi concerts, I was the first mridanga vidwan to play in one, accompanying Mazhavarayanendal Subbarama Bhagavatar,” Kannan remembers. He also had the honour of being the first staff artist to reach the Top Most Grade in AIR. He feels his job in AIR never hindered his career. “I always had enough time to play in concerts. AIR facilitated interaction with several musicians, which resulted in a lot of learning. It gave me the opportunity to conceive and produce several programmes, and compose many pallavi-s for them.” By the time he was in his twenties, Kannan had performed with all the leading artists of the day, including Ariyakudi, Chembai, GNB, Semmangudi Two veterans — Kannan accompanying R.K. Srikantan (Ramakanth vocal support) 14 l SRUTI August 2011 MAIN FEATURE and Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer. “There was rarely a concert of Dandapani Desigar without my accompaniment,” says Kannan. He also shared a special relationship with T.R. Mahalingam. “People have said that Mali indulged in laya exercises to put the accompanist in a spot. While playing for Mali I never felt he did anything deliberately to trouble me. He followed his creativity. I accompanied him from a very young age, so it was never difficult to play with him.” Who were the major influences on his playing style? Kannan paused for a while and said, “After all these decades of mridanga playing, I cannot reproduce the ‘chapu’ of my guru. Dakshinamurthi Pillai and tavil maestro Needamangalam Meenakshisundaram Pillai have left nothing to be explored in the field of laya. I don’t know if they have influenced my playing. I can only say, I’ve tried for a lifetime to reproduce what they have done. If I keep trying, maybe I will get there in my next birth.” Of his illustrious senior contemporaries, Kannan says, “There were two people who were born for the mridanga and nothing else. One was Palghat Mani Iyer and the other was Palani Subramania Pillai. They brought gauravam or prestige and honour to this art.” “On reading about my being conferred the Asian Music Rostrum Award, Palghat Mani paid a visit to my house and congratulated me. I consider that the greatest honour bestowed upon me,” Kannan proudly remembers.. Grand receptions and felicitation functions were held upon Kannan’s return to Chennai after he received the award. The AIR station director made a special request to him to conduct an ensemble. Kannan conceived the programme, Bhu Kailasa Vadya Sangamam, depicting the dance of Siva and Parvati. The ensemble consisted of several instruments including some Western instruments. The programme was a big hit and broadcast on several occasions over the years. While Kannan has won several awards, there are some notable omissions and delays. Did it have anything to do with his nonBrahmin roots? Kannan vehemently refutes the suggestion. “Dakshinamurthi Pillai was not a brahmin, but won the greatest of honour any human being could achieve. His disciples have built a samadhi temple for him in Pudukottai and he is worshipped as God. Can any award equal this honour?” Kannan asks. Kannan looks back with satisfaction on his life and career, “I have received much more than I deserve. Whatever I have today is because of my father and my guru. Without their blessings I would be nothing.” Kannan completed 75 years in the music field in 2002. The Sruti Foundation conferred the Vellore Gopalachariar award on him. Several 15 l SRUTI August 2011 MAIN FEATURE other felicitations followed. Nalli oganised a grand function to celebrate his achievements. The Karnataka Government honoured him with the title ‘Pancha Nada Kalaratna’. The central Sangeet Natak Akademi Award was bestowed on him only in 2004. Over the years, Kannan has produced several students who are now spreading his fame all around the globe. Ramakrishnan, Rajan, Srinath, Suresh and Deenadayalan are prominent among them. The interview lasts many hours. The wonderful fragrance of Kannan’s happy reminiscences linger long after the smell of attar and javvadu have left us. (Lalitha Ram is a writer and connoisseur in music) Receiving the central Sangeet Natak Akademi award from former President Abdul Kalam as Ram Niwas Mirdha, former Chairman, SNA looks on I n a career spanning well over 80 years, several honours have adorned Madras A. Kannan. In 1955, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister awarded him the title Laya Ratnakara. In 1959, Swami Sivananda Saraswati conferred the title Mridanga Samrat. Kannan was nominated by the Government of India to be part of a cultural delegation for a three-month long concert tour of Africa. Emperor of Ethiopia and the president of Liberia honoured the team with gold medals. Emani Sankara Sastri, Yehudi Menuhin and A. Kannan In 1974, legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin, President of the International Music Council invited Emani Sankara Sastri and Madras Kannan to perform at the silver jubilee celebrations of the Council. Their performance was voted as “The Concert of the Century”. In 1978, the international selection committee voted Kannan for the ‘Asian Music Rostrum Award’ at the meeting held in Alma-Ata, U.S.S.R. 16 l SRUTI August 2011