Excerpt From the Book "MS & Radha; saga of steadfast devotion"
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…A new chapter unfolded for Kunjamma
when she began to accompany her mother
in concerts. Soon the concert billing
changed to vocal music by "Miss. Madura Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi accompanied
by Miss. Veenai Shanmukhavadivoo". The
diary entry of a listener described one
such recital in February 1929, at the
Malaikkottai temple’s hundred pillared
mandapam in Tiruchi. The audience was
initially disappointed to see Madurai
Shanmukhavadivu instead of Tiruchendur
Shanmukhavadivu whom they had expected.
As some of them buttonholed the
secretary of the sabha and started
complaining that he should have
advertised the right name,
Shanmukhavadivu asked the girl in
pavadai chattai and long plait, sitting
a little behind her, to move forward.
When the girl finished her first kriti,
the mandapam echoed with applause and
enthusiastic cries of "Shabhaash!". At
the insistence of the rasikas the
secretary announced the girl’s name as “Kumari
M.S. Subbulakshmi, none other than the
daughter of Shanmukhavadivu Ammal.” The
rest of the concert was hers. A Muslim
listener got up and raced down the steep
steps of the hillock, only to clamber
back before the concert ended, to place
his gift, a gold medal that he had
hurriedly purchased, in the hands of the
young girl.What were Kunja's siblings doing
around this time? Sakti, a mridanga
vidwan in the making, had decided to
study for a degree, because he knew that
second-line musicians, particularly
accompanists, were notoriously
underpaid. Vadiva was continually prey
to undiagnosed illnesses that sapped her
energy. When she was well, she delighted
in playing with Kunja, hoping that one
day she would accompany her on the veena
as her mother did now. She was talented,
but lacked verve. Shanmukhavadivu had to
depend
on Kunjamma for the family’s
future security.
Recordings were another source of
income and publicity. The gramophone
companies had come to stay and were
producing ‘plates’ that burst into music
from a needlepoint on a winding machine.
Kunja cut her first disc at age ten, the
recording company yielding to
Shanmukhavadivu’s persistent demands
that they record her little girl's voice
as well. No one thought that the child’s
shrill treble would be noticed, but
Marakatavadivum, a song in praise of the
emerald-hued goddess Minakshi, in raga
Senjurutti, with Oothukuzhiyinile, a
siddhar padal (mystic verse), became a
hit everywhere. Other young singers
began to aim at the same high six-kattai
pitch.
The sales of this first record must
surely have surprised the company.
Evarimata in Kambhoji, sung on both
sides of the record, was released under
the Twin label, with the song title in
Telugu and Roman scripts, by “Miss.
Subbalakshmi (Madura)”. In those days a
hit song was often prefixed to the name
of the singer as in ‘Marubalka
Semmangudi’ or ‘Nagumomu Musiri’.
Kunjamma too was called ‘Evarimata
Subbulakshmi’. As a grandmother,
Subbulakshmi laughed heartily when a
child imitated those shrill Kambhoji
trills. She remarked, “That’s how it was
in those days. I went wherever my voice
took me. We only learn restraint with
age.”
The songs on those discs could have
been sung by any precocious child. After
all, Carnatic music has seen too many
child prodigies to be surprised by early
talent. Their distinguishing feature was
the way the voice soared effortlessly,
in crisp union with the sruti.
Kunja never forgot that HMV gave her
her first break. She did not shift to
other companies, not even when HMV was
no longer a big player in the field. In
her seventies, you saw her painfully
walking up the steep steps to the
by-then-dingy recording room, in a
dilapidated cobwebby mansion on a side
lane off Mount Road, near Gemini Circle.
She felt a happy comradeship with the
familiar soundmen. Her recordings took
time; when the red light was switched
on, she could become nervous. She
settled for nothing less than perfection
and nobody minded the delays. Lunch came
from her home in a huge multi-tiered
tiffin carrier, with enough sambar sadam,
tayir sadam and vegetables to feed
everyone including the accompanists and
the technicians. She never took a bite
before checking if anyone was left out,
and not until Radha said testily,
“They’re not children. They’ll take care
of themselves. Eat! You have to sing!”
Back in the late 1920s and early
1930s, Kunjamma was being recognised in
a larger circuit, in places like Tiruchi,
Ramanathapuram, Arcot, Tirunelveli,
Tanjavur and Karaikudi. She hardly
remembered those concerts though one of
them, in the home of a Saurashtrian
trading family in Madurai, could hardly
be forgotten. She walked into a hall
with mirrors on all sides. To see
herself multiplied, and to sing with so
many reflections of herself, from so
many angles, was both distracting and
amusing.
As was to be expected, women artistes
were paid less than men, and had to
depend on the patronage of affluent
benefactors in the aristocracy, landed
gentry and trading circles. In the
devadasi community, marriage was not
often an option. It was reserved for the
untalented. Married or not, the women
found themselves exploited, with no
economic or social security.
Kunjamma’s star was on the ascendant.
Everyone who heard her was full of
praise for the modest girl who sang
effortlessly, but she began to see the
evils of her situation. As
Shanmukhavadivu tried to establish her
career, Kunjamma began to think of the
security of marriage, of family bonds.
Obsessed though she was with music, she
began to wonder if art and career were
so important after all. None of the
women musicians she knew had it easy….
Gowri Ramnarayan
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