5 months ago
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: Music runs arsenic an undercurrent done galore of T. Janakiraman’s abbreviated stories and novels, reaching its zenith in Mohamul, aboriginal adapted into a film. As Chennai continues to pulsate with music, Kalachuvadu has published a postulation of abbreviated stories devoted to this theme, with a preface written by Sangita Kalanidhi Sanjay Subrahmanyan.
Janakiraman’s father, Thyagaraja Sastry, was an accomplished Harikatha exponent. During his years successful Kumbakonam, Janakiraman had the accidental to larn euphony from Umayalpuram Swaminatha Iyer. The euphony teacher, Ranganna, portrayed in Mohamul, was inspired by Swaminatha Iyer.
Despite his beardown philharmonic grounding, Janakiraman chose not to prosecute a vocation successful music. “Swaminatha Iyer passed distant connected the precise time Janakiraman was to marque his debut. When helium went retired to corroborate the news, helium saw the assemblage being taken for the funeral,” said Kalyanaraman, writer of Janakiramam, a postulation of essays published to people the writer’s commencement centenary.
The Kalachuvadu collection contains 10 stories. While immoderate are centred connected music, others dwell connected the acquisition of listening to it. Readers acquainted with Janakiraman’s writings and philharmonic sensibilities volition easy recognise his impatience with immoderate signifier of euphony different than Carnatic classical traditions, arsenic good arsenic with euphony criticism.
“This cannot beryllium dismissed arsenic Janakiraman’s idiosyncratic sensation alone. There are galore specified radical successful my circle. When I rendered a fewer devotional songs from films successful my concerts, I encountered listeners who shared his views,” writes Sanjay Subrahmanyan successful the preface.
Kottumelam, 1 of the stories successful the collection, reflects this perspective. While Janakiraman had extolled the greatness of the nagaswaram in Seithi, helium appeared acold little tolerant erstwhile the nagaswaram and the thavil accompanied Poikal Kuthirai, a people dance, in Kottumelam.
Sanjay Subrahmanyan notes that Janakiraman did not delve into the method minutiae of euphony successful his fiction. “It is astir the acquisition — conscionable the sanction of a raga, a enactment from a keerthana, a fewer philharmonic presumption scattered done the writing. When helium describes the euphony helium enjoyed, the literate quality and aesthetic sensitivity connection the scholar the implicit acquisition of listening,” helium writes.
Although Janakiraman adored and celebrated women, the story Rasikarum Rasikaiyum does not let its hero, Markandam, a celebrated musician, to exploit a woman’s admiration for his art. She drives him distant erstwhile helium tells her that “she sings amended than Tyagaraja”.
Kuzhanthaimethai reveals the burdens carried by a kid prodigy, who would alternatively speech astir sweets than her endowment for dance.
“Pashanga Ragam sharply critiques a euphony critic, who failed arsenic a instrumentalist and acquired his cognition solely from books. He remains oblivious to the suffering of his ain family. After his death, his woman marries his friend, who had supported the household.”
Natesanna, wide regarded arsenic 1 of Janakiraman’s finest stories, is unluckily absent from the collection.
