Kakarla Tyagabrahmam, popularly known as Tyagaraja, is said to have
been born on 4 May 1767 according to the Gregorian calendar. We celebrate the
birthday of this great vaggeyakara with a beautiful painting on the cover by
the late classical painter-musician S. Rajam. Nestling in the heart of the city
of Chennai, but away from its hustle and bustle, is situated a hoary sangeeta
sthalam dedicated to Tyagaraja—Sri Thiagaraja Sangeetha Vidwath Samajam in
Thiagarajapuram, Mylapore. Started by musicians in 1929, the Samajam is
continuing its good work in a quiet way, keeping away from glamour and
publicity. We trace its interesting story in this issue, and also present an
analysis of a rare kriti—Sri Narasimha mam pahi—composed by the bard. It
also falls in line with the celebration of Narasimha jayanti which occurs on 17
May this year, when Melattur comes alive to the sights and sounds of the
Bhagavata Mela Mahotsava.
The staging of Prahallada Bhakti Bijaya in Odissi and the
conference on Kathak and choreography in Bengaluru (in the News & Notes section)
reflect the transition from legacy to re-alignment in the arts.
We have an elaborate profile of senior Bharatanrityam exponent
Jayashree Rajagopalan, founder-director of Nrithyodaya-Mumbai who has been in
the field for over 50 years. She is the recipient of the Nritya Perunjoti award
from ABHAI—the Association of Bharatanatyam Artistes, this year.
Another interesting story is about the Hyderabad Sisters—Lalitha and
Haripriya—who were very popular in Chennai in the 1990s but who became busy
with their academic and concert assignments in Andhra Pradesh.
Not many would know about N.V. Murthy, a versatile percussionist, who
accompanied both Carnatic and Hindustani musicians in the south. Sruti has
always taken the initiative to write about less known artists who have
dedicated their lives to the arts.
Musicologist Rama Kausalya pays an emotional tribute to her good
friend, veteran Kamala Murthy who passed away recently.
In the passing away of S. Muthiah, veteran journalist, historian and
conservationist, Sruti has lost a good friend. I got a chance to meet
the soft spoken ever smiling Muthiah in the 1990s. He was a well-wisher of the
magazine and a good friend of the founder-editor N. Pattabhi Raman. He would
occasionally visit the editorial office at Alapana and comment on the
magazine’s layout, contents and have a good word for everybody. Deeply
passionate about Chennai’s heritage, he enjoyed the articles, cartoons and
statistics about Chennai’s music and dance season. In fact S. Muthiah was
involved in printing Sruti in the initial years. He told us that he was
there when the very first copy of the first issue came out of the trimming
machine, and he flipped through it to make sure that they had made no errors
while printing at TT Maps where he worked. Muthiah would often reproduce
articles from Sruti in his fortnightly called Madras Musings.
Meticulous and principled that he was, he never failed to give credit and would
send us a cheque for the same though we never asked him to do so. We, at Sruti,
cherish our long standing interaction with S. Muthiah — the ‘Man from Madras
Musings’.
S. JANAKI
