 When humour is music
It has been my pleasure to know a number of musicians on a personal level. They vary from Carnatic to Hindustani to rock or jazz, and from the bathroom singer variety to the professional. They are most of them interesting people, with a view on almost every subject on earth, but reserving their strongest for cricket. I do not know what causes this affinity between cricket and music, but almost every musician I know, especially of the Carnatic variety, is a self-styled expert on cricket. I cannot name them here, but some of them are so passionate about the game, they have been known to be late for concerts because they were watching the exciting finishing moments of a match. Some make sure while accepting an outstation concert engagement that they are staying at a place with cable TV so that they can watch the match of the day. At least one musician nearly cancelled a concert threatening to return to home base until the host somehow managed a satellite TV connection for him to watch the match in peace before the
cutcheri.
One guru and sishya pair were both involved in this hilarious episode involving a cricket match. With India batting and his favourite batsman Sachin Tendulkar in full flow, the guru was desperate to watch the game, but unfortunately, there was no TV set in the hotel room in the small town they were visiting. The guru sent his sishya on a reconnaissance mission to locate a TV retail shop where they could go and watch the cricket. Once that was done, he set out with disciple in tow and stood outside the shop window, watching the match with bated breath.
The student was highly embarrassed and worried his guru might be recognised by some passer-by. He held him in the highest esteem and feared his reputation would suffer a setback if he was found standing like a commoner outside a shop to catch a glimpse of Tendulkar. So he said to his guru, “Let’s go back. Haven’t we watched enough? Look at the shopkeeper, he is staring at us with contempt. He’s going to switch off the TV now.” The guru was unfazed as the shopkeeper proceeded to do exactly what his student anticipated. He refused to budge and told the youngster, “Just watch. How long can he keep the TV switched off. More people will gather here to watch the cricket and it will be bad for his business if he keeps the set turned off.” Sure enough, the shopkeeper switched on his TV again and guru and sishya watched quite a bit of the rest of the game, standing there on the footpath.
The guru-sishya pair in the story above were none other than D K Jayaraman and Vijay Siva, according to violinist R K Sriramkumar. He related the incident during an afternoon of anecdotage in which he and T M Krishna entertained a thrilled audience of friends. The stories flowed fast and free and involved some great names in Carnatic music. One of them was about the venerable Semmangudi Srinivasier, who had commissioned his young chela T M Krishna to take him visiting in his car. With mischief in his eyes, he confirmed with Krishna that it was an air-conditioned car before getting in. “Nowadays, I only travel A/C,” he assured Krishna. He then turned to Sriramkumar and asked him, “Aenda, when are you buying a car?” Sriramkumar replied modestly that he didn’t have enough money to buy a car. Semmangudi’s retort was: “What’s your problem? Aren’t you the violin accompanist for a Bharat Ratna?” For once the young violinist had the last word when he said: “You know that the Bharat Ratna herself has no money!” referring to M S Subbulakshmi’s extraordinary generosity and selflessness that left her with no wealth of her own.
On another occasion, Semmangudi attended a private concert of his disciple Vairamangalam Lakshminarayanan in a distant suburb of Chennai. After experiencing some difficulty in locating the house where the concert was held, Semmangudi said, “I don’t know why Ravana took the trouble of hiding Sita in the Asoka vanam. If he had kept her in this suburb, Hanuman would have had no chance of locating her.”
V Ramnarayan
vramnarayan@gmail.com
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