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 It sounds truly like a miracle. Though taking it with a sense of
disbelief, even the most rational person in the media cannot dismiss it as a silly joke.
On the contrary they have every reason to believe what happened to 66-year-old Mangalam
Ganapathy on a late august evening, when she was arranging her house for Ganapathy homam
and Devi pooja. "I still don’t know how it happened. But as I kept doing my
work, there was a song on Lord Ganesha, and similarly on the Devi coming to my mind with
appropriate ragas and thala, without any effort from my side." As Mangalam explains
she seems overwhelmed with excitement. Since that late august evening, last year, she has
composed not less than 2000 krithis in the Carnatic form. The compositions are in
different languages like Sanskrit, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and her mother tongue - Tamil.
Born in Kallidaikurichi Tirunelveli district,
Mangalam spent her early years in what was then the Madras province. Apart from learning
the basics of Hindi and Sanskrit, she had little or no knowledge in these languages.
"Entirely not to the level of writing Krithies," says Mangalam. After getting
married to Ganapathy, an assistant registrar in Kerala University in
Tiruvananthapuram,
Mangalam’s life was largely spent at home preparing her two sons for school and
diligently performing the duties of a household woman. "Just 15 months ago, our
family shifted to Chennai and within a few months, this miracle took place," recounts
Mangalam.
Initially, nobody in Mangalam’s family knew that her
compositions were of any merit. V Subramaniyam, Mangalam’s nephew took her
compositions to two experts in Carnatic music, Mrs. Rukmani Ramani, daughter of the famous
composer Papanasam Siven, and Panchapakesan, renowned authors on Carnatic music. Awed by
the perfection of both the music and diction of the composition, the two agreed to
transcribe the Krithis into musical notations. V. Srivatsa, a scholar in Sanskrit and also
erudite in music, endorsed the compositions of Mangalam as the best works in Carnatic
music in this era. The Krithis also won the acknowledgement of Semmengudi Srinivasa
Iyer.
"I should say that I am most privileged to get the acclaims from the great names in
Carnatic music. It is, of course, God’s grace and not my brilliance," says a
humble Mangalam.
With the efforts of Rukmani Ramani, Panjapakesan, and
Subramanyam, the compositions of Mangalam are released in the form of a book and an audio
cassette. The book contains forewords from Semmengudi Srinivasa Iyer, and Dr. Srivatsa. It
contains Krithis on all the Hindu gods and goddesses including one each on the musical
trios of Carnatic, Thiyagaraja, Muthuswami Deekshider, and Shiyama Shastri. Mangalam says
that she still gets songs in her mind very frequently when she sees the deity of any God.
It is not her intention to be popular, but she says that it would give her immense
pleasure if every household sings her compositions to praise their own favorite Gods and
gets the blessings. This real miracle story would surely be an extraordinary one. But its
place in the long history of humanity can only be decided by time.
L. Subramani
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