 It is a hot and sultry afternoon in August, when having ascertained his availability, I step into S Rajam’s studio-cum-residence. Located in narrow and quaint Nadu Street in Mylapore, just off the Kapaleeswarar Temple, it is a familiar landmark for me, as I have visited him quite often in the past few years. This year, regretfully, there have been few opportunities as Rajam and his wife have recovered from fairly serious ailments. So it is after 6 months, barring the visit to the hospital, that I am meeting him in person.
The electricity connection has failed. But that is obviously not holding up Rajam from continuing with his paintings. He is putting the finishing touches to a series on Oothukkadu Venkatasubbaiyyar’s kritis, which will appear in the Deepavali Malar of one of the prominent Tamizh magazines.
The finishing touch in itself is rather unusual. For Rajam takes what looks like a completed painting to me, and then dipping a brush in plain water, he dabs it all over the painting. Strangely the painting does not smudge and emerges all the more beautiful after this "water wash".
"Do you know why I do it," he asks. "It is to remove the excess colours from the painting. Only the subtle brush strokes and effects remain and all that is garish is washed away. Do you know I lose more than 30 per cent of the paints this way? It is a loss. But my painting will survive without problems and its life will be as long as the medium on which I do it.
"I learnt it all from Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury, who was principal of the Government College of Arts when I was a student. He was a terror. I was just about the only student he could tolerate because I was a graduate. Do you know how great the college was when he was principal? In those days, only four colleges in the city were famous. Can you name them?"
"Presidency, Queen Mary’s,..." I begin.
"No! No!" he chuckles with glee. "The four colleges were setta kalej
(museum), uyir kalej (zoo), meen kaiej (aquarium) and bommai kaiej (Government College of Arts). Ours was the only real 'kalej' among the four. In those days, people from the mofussil areas would travel down to the city and consider their visit successful if they had seen all these
'kalejs'."
I ask him to tell me about those days. A topic of never failing interest for him and me. He, in turn, hands me the various sketches and takes them on at a time to the front room to lay them out for drying. In between these comings and goings, and during a final session in the front room, Rajam went down a long journey through the past and took me along with him. I am reproducing it as I heard it. There is no structure to it. But it is an interesting flashback.
"Do you know who were the famous rasikas of those days? There was Tambi, Appu, Babu, Sundu and Picchai. They were all fairly distinguished men in their own right, or at least came from illustrious family backgrounds. Tambi was T V Rajagopal, son of T R Venkatarama Sastry and husband of Rukmini Rajagopal, the guru and grand aunt of 'your' Sanjay Subrahmanyan. He was a mild man, who devoted his life to music. For many years, he was secretary at the Music Academy.
"Appu was K Chandrashekhara Iyer, son of V Krishnaswamy Iyer. He was on the board of the Indian Bank and was also actively involved with the Sanskrit College. Babu was, of course, C K Venkatanarasimham, the eminent criminal lawyer and friend of G N
Balasubramaniam.
"Sundu was Mylapore Sundaram Iyer, my own father, who was dedicated to music, though he practised as a lawyer. Do you know my father wrote reviews in 'The Hindu'? His views were considered very authoritative by artistes such as Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar. In case my father felt that a particular sangati was out of place, Iyengar would drop it.
"Of Picchai I do not remember much, but he too was a lawyer and he is the father of Kalpagam Balasubramaniam in whose house Sampradaya is located.
"In case all these five, namely Tambi, Appu, Babu, Picchai and Sundu decided to attend a concert, then it was definitely a concert worth attending. Of course, K V Kitta (Krishnaswamy Ayyar) was yet another noteworthy, but he was more of an organiser. A man who combined both these qualities was Mutthanna of Jagannatha Bhakta Sabha. He was particularly fond of me. One day, I was attending a concert of Pt Narayan Rao Vyas. Do you know where it was being held? Under a pandal behind Ripon Buildings and Victoria Public Hall."
"Could it have been a Music Academy conference," I ask.
"I am not sure. But the pandal was a very tall one. I was quite immersed in Vyas’ singing, when Mutthanna jogged my elbow. 'Raju,' he said. 'I will take you to something much better'. You must realise that I was hardly 12 or 13. He was many years my senior. So I had to comply. We set off in his small black car to Saundarya Mahal in George Town. Abdul Karim was singing. That was the first time I heard him. I cannot say I really enjoyed it. But over the years I came to like his music very much. I must thank Mutthanna for opening that window.
"You were asking me if it was the Music Academy conference. Do you know what happened at the first Academy conference, the one in 1927? Naina Pillai was singing with his team. Next in line was Pt Vishnu Digambar. Naina overshot his schedule. The Pandit became restive. He and his team were all giants in physical stature. They just moved in and began singing raghupati rAghava rAjA rAm. Naina’s concert had to end. It took quite a while for the organisers to smoothen Naina’s feathers.
"Jalatarangam Ramanaiah Chetty was there. Do you know he had instructed the shop below Dhanammal’s house to give me a packet of kArAsEv and bAdAm halwa free every time I came for the Friday concert? He was that fond of me."
The conversation now veers around to Mylapore. Rajam had asked me about the Heritage Walk. And that started the topic.
"Do you know, when I learnt music from Ambi Dikshitar, he lived in
Mylapore?" (Rajam refers to him as Dikshatar)
"I thought he lived in
Mirsahibpet."
"No! He was living right here in Ponnambala Vadyar Street. T L Venkatarama Iyer used to live on Sannidhi Street and he was learning Dikshitar kritis from Ambi Dikshitar. So he had rented a house belonging to the temple for his guru. These were all houses with tiled roofs and would be invariably empty. The temple was glad the someone was willing to live in them and keep them clean and so gladly rented them out for a few paise every month.
"So my father approached Dikshatar and asked him to teach me. He agreed. My father used to call him Ambi Bhagavatar. So on a good day, Ambi Dikshatar came home to teach me music."
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An afternoon with S Rajam
