SELF MADE! 1. K Pandiarajan

Ma Foi K Pandiarajan He lights up hope in everyone he meets, like a lamp that ignites a hundred others and glows brighter. K Pandiarajan, founder of the Rs. xxx crore Ma Foi, India’s no.1 human resources company, started life as a child worker in a match factory in Sivakasi. “My very birth brought unhappiness to many,” recalls Pandiarajan. “I was an “unlucky” child in a community riddled by superstition; my father died within three months of my birth, just as some soothsayer had predicted on reading my horoscope. Forsaken by all, I came under the loving care of my grandparents. We lived in the small village of Vilampatti near Sivakasi, known as a mini Japan those days. Grandfather was a cook by profession. He was a man of rough exterior, a stubborn man. I was grandma’s pet. Match manufacture was a cottage industry in the Sivakasi region, and I worked in one such ‘’match factory” after school. Until I went to college my fingers were inseparable from the odour of the chemicals that went into making matches. “The product we helped manufacture might have brought light, but ours was a life of darkness. I found refuge from poverty in my studies. The greater our suffering, the harder I worked. My hunger, my thirst for knowledge, for success, made me a class topper throughout. Fortunately, there were no obstacles in my way, as my academic excellence brought pride and honour to my school and my village. My grandparents and my maternal uncles spared no effort to educate me, even if it meant that they had to starve. “A new door opened for me when I gained admission to the PSG College at Coimbatore. I was one of the few Tamil medium students to be admitted there. Though English was a challenge initially, my school education in the Tamil medium had laid a strong foundation for me. “I made friends easily with my classmates and their families, though I had not the slightest idea that this natural gregariousness would one day help me reach heights in the human resources development field. I became an honorary son of the parents of all my male classmates. I invariably went to the home of one of my friends to spend my vacations. As a good student, I was always welcome at their homes. “My friends encouraged me whenever I felt low in self-esteem. They assured me that I had ability. One of them, Subramanian, sent me the MBA application form for admission to the Xavier Labour Relations Institute, the excellent institute of higher learning run by Christian missionaries at Jamshedpur. It was a turning point in my life. He helped me shed my inferiority complex by telling me I could compete with smart youngsters from privileged backgrounds. When I received my admission letter, I could not believe my luck. “At the interview, I was literally in rags compared to my well-dressed peers. Yet my good grades got me in. The next step was to secure a bank loan, which was made easy by the excellence of the institution I was about to join. I soon became the cynosure of all eyes when I earned the Hindustan Lever scholarship for MBA students after a written competitive test. I became the most wanted person in my class, as Lever would hire the scholarship winners during campus placement at the end of the course. I was guaranteed a job in an MNC within three months of joining MBA. The village yokel was now the fount of wisdom every student sought out as a mentor. “I had never known a woman so far—if you did not count my mother and grandmother. A girl entered my life now. I was love-struck. She was bright and beautiful. And she cared for me. It was a novel experience. For the first time in my life, I neglected my studies, lovelorn. I became a backbencher in class. “It was shortlived. What she felt for me was sympathy for my poverty, not love, I was to find out. All of a sudden, life lost its meaning for me. I became a victim of self-pity, cursing my ill luck. “Life was not worth living, I decided. I was so crazy that I tore up the Hindustan Lever job application form. All my classmates took up attractive jobs, but I joined an ordinary firm on a monthly salary of Rs. 5,000. Still, it was a good start for someone of my background, the best yet in my family. For the first time in my life, I faced the frightening, routine prospect of marriage and an average existence, with an average job. “Having slid down rapidly in a real life game of snakes and ladders, I tried to resurrect my old self-confidence, and grab a ladder. “The darkest hour is before dawn. I was confident that the doors of success would open if I worked hard, with patience. My experience has proved that confidence right. “An American expert commissioned to put out a fire that broke out in an oil well in Andhra Pradesh needed 35 engineers to assist him in the project. The Australian HR firm appointed to hire these personnel included 31 Indians in the list of 35 it recruited in all. Of course, an Indian oil major was to pay their salaries! “The Australian company received a fee of one million dollars for the assignment, higher than the annual income of India’s top human resource enterprise. The episode had a strong impact on me. I could not reconcile myself to the idea that a foreign company earned such huge revenue out of a transaction involving an Indian company and the Indian engineers it hired. We still see the Indian population in excess of a billion people as a burden, not as the huge asset it is. “Under pressure to find a job, I wondered if it wasn’t a better idea to start an HR company myself instead. My wife Lata supported me in my venture and gave the new business the French name Ma Foi, which meant “my word.” Our dream venture was born on 15 August 1992. Today a Rs. 600 crore enterprise, Ma Foi was launched with a capital of Rs. 60,000. “We started selecting the right candidates for different prospective employers, training them and sending them on their way to their jobs. We swore never to collect any fees from the job seekers. Our promise to employees was the result of all the bad news we constantly read of people seeking jobs overseas being taken for a ride by unscrupulous employment agencies. Our decision to collect fees only from employers was the first and most important step in our journey. “According to an old saying, we plan to fail when we fail to plan. My wife and I sat down together to draw up Ma Foi’s objectives and plans, like parents plan their children’s future. “I was our first full time employee, and Lata a part time resource. I went round on a motorcycle and knocked on the doors of several companies, carrying my dreams everywhere. “It was not the industry practice then to meet job applicants personally. Recruiters asked them to mail their resumes and applications or drop them in a box at the office. We broke the tradition, by welcoming job aspirants with a cup of coffee and personal interaction. This helped us to match individual expectations with job specifications, as many tended to seek positions for which they were not suited, not really knowing their own attributes. Through personal interviews, we were able to assess the candidate’s qualities accurately and find them suitable employment, earning a good reputation in the process. “Regardless of our success in finding jobs for the young applicants who came to us, we managed to convert most of them into our ambassadors, thanks to the trouble we took over these personal interactions. The young people who came to us seeking careers were our unofficial ambassadors. “A poor young man from the Gudiyattam region of Vellore district was the first job applicant we placed abroad. He almost became a victim of the monopolistic practices of Mumbai based HR majors which placed obstacles in the path of smaller HR agencies. Successful candidates in the overseas job market had to go to Bombay to obtain medical certificates. These big companies made sure such candidates were declared medically unfit by bribing the officials concerned. When our young man was similarly treated, we were in tears along with him. We almost got into a street fight with the medical certificate issuer. We had to threaten legal action to obtain the medical certificate. He eventually left for Doha to take up a job that would pay him a monthly salary of Rs. 40,000. The gratitude in his eyes when we saw him off at the airport was incredibly motivating. “The world famous Apple Computers opened in India and decided to hire 300 employees. The company approached many Indian HR firms. In a highly competitive situation, we were given the job, based on our blameless track record. It was a huge opportunity for us. Advertisements were released across India in all the leading magazines, calling for applications for jobs in Apple to be sent to Ma Foi. The campaign gave us great visibility. We won the confidence of educated youth with our slogan Ma Foi shapes your future. “Ups and downs are inevitable in business. We created an atmosphere of employee participation in the growth of Ma Foi, which enabled everyone to share the success of the company, thus reducing the chances of failure. “The journey that began with an individual has now grown to accommodate more than 30,000 employees joined together in one common goal. Ma Foi, which opened its first office near a slum, now has offices in 14 countries. Ma Foi places one person every two minutes of an eight-hour workday, some 5,000 new employees every month somewhere. Our next goal is to place one person per minute. Pandiarajan has a keen sense of social concern and expresses it when he speaks of the charitable work his company participates in and encourages. “Every year we spend more than a crore of rupees on education and health through the Ma Foi Foundation. When an employee involves herself in social service, we give them suitable credits in their performance appraisal. We give such employees six days’ leave with pay annually to do social work. We have many more dreams. The sky is the limit.”

On MADRAS ON MY MIND

"I am the ultimate Madrasi. "I certainly don't fit into the north-of-the-Vindhyas idea of that term. Meaning, I don't wear a pista-green polyester safari suit, speak like Mehmood in Padosan, sport vibhuti, nor am I named Swami Iyer." This is how Krishna Shastri Devulapalli opens the introduction to the recent anthology Madras on my Mind: A City in Stories, edited by him and Chitra Viraraghavan. In addition to Krishna's brilliant, in-your-face humour and Chitra's delicately phrased editorial utterances, the book contains the unexpected pleasures in the writings of some unexpected authors, steering clear of the usual suspects. The editors have contributed their own Madras stories in quite inimitable style, but they have generously showcased some fine writing by others in the form of both fiction and non-fiction. To me, the undoubted star of this collection is the venerable Bujjai of Panchatantra fame, a self-effacing artist of extraordinary quality who lit up my childhood with his exquisite illustrations in the magazines of my time. His chapter Flowers on the Madras Trains begins with the words "If you lived in the 1930s, and had passed through Pithapuram on a train with your head stuck out of the window, chances are you would have seen a boy on the station's lone platform. I'm talking of one particular extra-slight boy of five or six, seated on the shoulders of a girl only a tad bigger than him. If you could have tuned out the hiss and rumble of the train, you would have heard the melancholic song on his lips: Flowers on the Madras train, O, My Lord, My Lord, Flowers on the Madras train. "The boy was me, and the put-upon girl, my slightly older cousin, Seetha." After his first visit to Madras, the young Bujjai had a bagful of stories to regale his relatives back in Andhra with. "When I returned to Pithapuram, I told the country bumpkin kids in my neighbourhood of my Great Madras Trip, beginning with the conquest of Moore Market, followed by my victory run in the tram, my ascent of the lighthouse, and my life-saving discovery of comic books," The chapter ends with this passage: "Today, as I sit on a concrete bench overlooking the Kottivakkam beach, it is hard to imagine that more than seventy-five years have passed from that day when I first set foot in Madras. My favourite pastime is watching my son and grandson walking up and down the one kilometre stretch of road every evening, albeit in opposite directions, and listening to the sounds of the sea. Each time a wave crashes it seems to be saying 'what if', 'what if' to me. I'm at that age, I suppose, with all the time in the world to ponder the 'what ifs' of my life. What if my father had sent me to school? What if my wife hadn't died so young? What if my grandson wasn't autistic? "Of all the 'what ifs' the waves bring my way every day, the one I never contemplate is 'what if I hadn't come to Madras?' In between, Bujjai tells us the story of a talented boy who stayed home in Triplicane to fill drawing books with his illustrations while other, less fortunate kids went to school, and mouthwatering tales of sundal on the Marina beach withis uncles in the evening. Every story in the book is redolent of a Madras gone, now only belonging only to the realm of memories, yet celebratory of today's Chennai as well. The wistfulness of the book is as unmistakable as Madras bhashai and sultry afternoons and the seabreeze that follows. Among the several other gems in the anthology, two sparkle with a special brightness that appeals to me: House of Powders by Sanobar Sultana, and My Mother's Madras by Vamsee Juluri. To know more about them, you will have to watch this space. Better still, why don't you buy the book? Madras on My Mind, edited by Chitra Viraraghavan and Krishna Shastri Devulapalli, HarperCollins Publishers India. Price Rs. 350. Available at bookstores, but at the best prices online at Amazon, Flipkart and other sites.

SIFAS Festival 2017: Ravikiran in sublime form

Arriving at Changi Airport, Singapore, on 1st April, I was happy to be received by Sushma and Shruti. Shruti left with my co-passenger Mannargudi Eswaran, while I stayed back with Sushma to await the arrival by another flight of Satyajit Talwalkar the tabla ustad who was to accompany Kaushiki Chakrabarty (vocal) and Rakesh Chaurasia (flute) in a concert on the 2nd at Esplanade on the Beach. Satyajit turned out to be a cool character, easygoing and confident in his self, the legacy of his tabla maestro father Suresh Talwalkar sitting lightly on him. We were taken straight to the SIFAS premises, where we freshened up in the guest house and had a breakfast of idlis and coffee, before we trooped to the auditorium to listen to Kauhsiki Chakraborty and Rakesh Chaurasia in conversation with a sizable audience. Moderated by the American accented Ganesh Anand (a Hindustani vocal student of SIFAS), the session proved lively and entertaining, even if Kaushiki spoke of how divine her father's (Ajay Chakraborty's) music and nature were in typically traditional tones of guru worship. Both she and Rakesh, who is flute maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia's nephew, spoke of the advantages and disadvantages of their inheritance, though even the so-called negatives did turn out to be positives in the long run. For Kaushiki the child, music was play, and growing up, she revelled in translating every song she learnt into sargam syllables, and pushing herself to extremes while traversing the octaves. Rakesh, in contrast, was lazy about daily riyaz, but Hariprasad overcame this obstacle in his nephew's musical path, by leaving blank cassettes with him in the morning and demanding that they be filled with his practice exercises by the time he returned in the evening. Both confessed to their openness to the idea of collaborations and fusion efforts.in particularly, gave a strong reply to a member of the audience who suggested that some of these attempts to take classical music to the common folk would result in dilution of the art. Kaushiki drew parallels from the history of music, by referring to the Persian influence on Hindustani music, and even traced the raga Bhoop to the Chinese pentatonic scale. Kaushiki proved an articulate and confident champion of her school of music, and gave some lovely samples of the incredible range of her voice and her amazing virtuosity. He reached out easily to the young in the audience, though she tended to go on a bit too long. Rakesh showed several glimpses of his uncle's sense of humour and repartee, but he fooled no one into believing that he was playful in his pursuit of musical excellence. Like Kaushiki, he spoke of the collaborative work he enjoys doing. Chitravina N Ravikiran’s concert that evening was as good as his best concerts in India. Every raga and every kriti he played was rooted in the traditional mode, and the sound of his instrument resembled some ancient cry to the beyond, giving you goosebumps with its purity and magnificent reverberance. Is there a better Carnatic musician in the authentic tradition? Ravikiran had great support from Akkarai Subhalakshmi (violin) and Mannargudi Eswaran (mridangam) who was celebrating his 72nd birthday. Both of them complemented the chitravina with their sometimes subtle, sometimes dynamic playing. It was also an opportunity for the versatile local percussionist who was playing the ghatam this evening. Charged by the brilliance of his mridangam playing senior, he perhaps got away on occasion. All in all, it was a most memorable concert. By V Ramnarayan (To be continued)

Cup for bowling stardom

By V Ramnarayan

(From Madras Musings, February 1996)

The Wills World Cup promises to be a bowlers' contest for stardom more than any of its predecessors, with a number of exciting new talents emerging in the recent past. Veteran of 200 Test and 87 one-day international wickets, Shane Warne will certainly figure at the very top of the popularity charts unless he decides to skip India as well as Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Easily the most glamorous spinner of the Cup, the Aussie will face the sternest test of his career if and when he comes up against the Indians who have, in the past, succeeded in collaring him. The other wrist spinners, Anil Kumble and Mushtaq Mohammed, will almost equally be the cynosure of all eyes as they spring to their task to the accompaniment of deafening local roars.

The spin department may even draw more attention than all the others with Paul Adams of South Africa and his extraterrestrial bowling action providing drama of a kind not witnessed before. Muthiah Muralitharan will be another centre of attraction and his bowling action will be debated, until the cows come home, at cricket grounds and in drawing rooms across continents. For Aashish Kapoor of India, who learnt his cricket in Madras, this will be a great opportunity to display his flair for instant cricket. Besides his offspin, Aashish can bat attractively and innovatively. If the young man grabs his chances, he may achieve international celebrity status before the end of the championship. And let us not forget Venkatapathy Raiu, who may surprise the lot.

Among the quickies, it will be every Indian's fond hope that Javagal Srinath will enhance his reputation as one of the fastest improving bowlers in the world. His stint with Gloucestershine in the English county circuit was an education that helped the' Karnataka paceman's graduation into the ranks of the world's leading speed merchants. With experience has come the maturity to bowl within himself in limited overs competition. Perhaps Azharuddin will feel emboldened to bring him on in the slog overs instead of turning to his second string as he did last season. Venkatesh Prasad too is an improved bowler while Salil Ankola, if he finds a place in the playing eleven, may prove the surprise package of the Indian attack, to go by his recent track record.

I cannot escape the feeling that the World Cup may mark the beginning of the end of the road for veteran all- rounder Manoj Prabhakar, to judge from the decline in pace and accuracy noticed in the series against New Zealand. With Prabhakar, however, you can expect always the unexpected and he may well bounce back, stung by suggestions that he may be over the hill.

Dominic Cork, the new Botham whom England supporters want so desperately to live up to that expectation, is the only English paceman with the ingredients of charisma, though his relatively workmanlike colleagues may ensure yet another semi-final berth for their team with their professional competence. Even little fancied Zimbabwe can boast of a more colourful attack with the young Heath Streak improving by leaps and bounds. Dion Nash and Danny Morrison of New Zealand are worthy performers in both kinds of cricket, but fall short of the aggression and precision of their trans-Tasman counterparts, McDermott, McGrath and Reiffel.

Pakistan has Akram and Waqar Yunus and New Zealand has Chris Cairns. These are three pace bowlers who can be expected to turn matches upside down with their aggressive bowling.

Man to man, however, no other side in the competition appear capable of matching the South African combination of Allan Donald, Fanie De Villiers, Shaun Pollock and Brian McMillan. Young Pollock, one of the world's most exciting young fast bowling prospects, some say he's the fastest bowler in the world, will be keenly watched by the critics to see how he fares on the placid wickets of the subcontinent.

"Never make the mistake of writing off the West Indians", is probably the most sensible piece of advice you can offer anyone going into the World Cup. The old firm of Ambrose and Walsh, supported by new partners, can wring life out of the deadest of playing surfaces. Smarting under recent reverses, the West Indians will be thirsting for success in the Cup. With Lara back in the side, their fast men will be bowling with their tails up.

Sri Lanka has a sharp new pace attack consisting of Vaas, Wickremasinghe, and Pushpakumara. While Wickremasinghe came into his own in the WSC matches in Australia after a relatively indifferent Test series, Pushpakumara has impressed one and all with his persistent pace. But their left-handed partner, Chaminda Vaas, has been the pick of the Lankan attack. If I were to pick the one quickie likely to emerge as the strike bowler of the World Cup, I'll put my money on this talented left armer. It will be a shame if the threat of violence denies this fine young athlete the chance to bowl Sri Lanka to glory in the Wills World Cup.

The best of two worlds

By V Ramnarayan

(From Madras  Musings, June 1995)

Jayakrishna Ambati has a string of achievements to his credit, achievements that put him in the prodigy class. This 24-year·old physician, medical scientist, artificial intelligence expert and electronics engineer rolled into one has been recognised as outstanding and lionised in the US where he now lives. 

If on reading of Jayakrishna's exploits. you think they are hard to better, wait till you read about his younger brother's. By now it is common knowledge that 17 -year-old Balamurali Krishna Ambati has become the world's youngest doctor, with honours in all basic sciences, medicine, paediatrics, psychiatry, neurology, emergency medicine, community medicine, ophthalmology, otolaryngology and neurosurgery. Bala has been featured in newspapers and magazines in four continents and appeared in several TV and radio programmes worldwide.

I had the pleasure of meeting the parents of these gifted brothers. To meet proud parents Murali Mohan Rao and Gomathy on their recent visit to Madras was to catch a brief glimpse of the well-directed love and guidance responsible for the growth and development of the two gifted brothers.

A few minutes after I reached their newly built home in Mahalingapuram, where the Ambatis were staying, the family arrived after a hectic round of visits. It was 8.00 p.m. and pitch dark, thanks to a power breakdown. "I thought the power cut was confined to the morning," remarked Bala, innocent of the ways of Tamil Nadu's power supply agency. After a few minutes of desultory conversation, we decided to go ahead with the interview in the dark! Unknown to us, Jayakrishna had gone walkabout, in search of candles, as I learnt later, a search that took him as far as T Nagar.  Bala was by then resigning himself to yet another press interview only to be reassured that I'd talk to his parents. Obviously grateful for this reprieve, he gave a wonderful, boyish smile that said it all.

It is pretty obvious to even the casual bystander that the Ambatis are a closely knit, old-fashioned family where traditional South Indian values are respected. Much of the conversation within the family is in Telugu, without a trace of an American accent. In attire, too, the family is difficult to tell apart from the average Madras family. Murali Mohan Rao takes pride in the way his children have been brought up to be truly Indian in their cultural outlook.

Murali Mohan Rao was the fifth of eight sons born to Ambati Subbaraya Gupta, ICS, the first Indian District Magistrate of Cuddapah District. Ambati senior was an ashtavadhani, or an adept at the simultaneous performance of eight different feats of mental agility. After his schooling at RECC High School, Perambur, Murali Mohan Rao finished his B Tech at IIT Madras in 1969. From then, until his departure for the States in 1980, he taught maths at Voorhees College and CMC School in Vellore, followed by a stint at IIT, Madras. In the US, he studied industrial engineering and operations research.

As Murali Mohan Rao grew up, the atmosphere at home was conducive to learning and academic excellence. Another brother to benefit from this helpful atmosphere was Ramalingeswara Rao,  who recently retired as Deputy Director of Health Services. "He does not even own a house," remarks Murali Mohan Rao, proud of his family's standards of integrity. He strongly believes that the mother's presence at home is vital to the well- being of the children, the reason why his wife Gomathy has not taken up a full-time job, though qualified. "Why should the wives of Indian doctors in the US take up jobs when they are so well off? I call It greed."

Gomathy, who is from Madurai, had a degree in mathematics before she went on to higher studies in Tamil. In the US, she obtained a master's degree in education. She teaches a couple of courses at the University, once she has completed her daily household duties. During the first three years of the Ambatis' stay in the US, it was Gomathy who took care of the boys' educational and development needs at home, while Murali Mohan Rao was settling down in his studies. Jayakrishna was ten and Bala three then.

It was Gomathy who first noticed Bala's precocious talent, his language skills, cognitive ability and mathematical aptitude. Jayakrishna would also participate in honing young Bala's prodigious intelligence and memory. Bala could spell quite well at three and knew the multiplication tables before he was five. Yet the US school system did not permit him to join school until he was six.

It was only after Murali Mohan Rao completed his higher studies and started his teaching career that he started devoting time to Bala's intellectual stimulation. He used his new professional status to repeatedly argue with the administrators to win Bala double promotions.

There were, and still are, several brainstorming sessions in the Ambati home, making learning a pleasurable experience - the word 'fun' is anathema to Murali Mohan Rao. There would be quizzes on maths, physics, the environment and so on, in which all four would take part enthusiastically.

The Ambatis follow a traditional lifestyle at home - respect for elders, humility, our spiritual heritage, discipline are important ingredients. There is much Telugu spoken and an effort to bring the boys up as normal persons. Sport is not ruled out - basketball is a favourite and chess is more than a hobby with both the sons. All four are regular visitors to the Hindu temple where they conduct an Educational Excellence Programme on Saturday afternoons to train middle and high school students to prepare for the National Merit Scholarship and SAT exams.

It is easy to see the close ties of the Ambati family, the parents' affection and pride in their children, tempered by orthodox Hindu parental ideas of discipline. No smoking or alcohol is allowed in the house. The young men are models of good behaviour and excellent manners.

Just as the family was getting ready to leave for elder statesman  C Subramaniam's house for dinner, Jayakrishna returned triumphantly with the candles, to lighten the gloom, but, alas, too late to join the conversation. In a refreshing display of adolescent curiosity, Bala asked me whether I spoke Tamil or Telugu and we exchanged notes on our respective heights. 
I asked him whether he watched the TV serial 'Doogie Howser, MD.', the story of a teenage surgeon much like Bala. He is quick to point out that he has been around longer than the serial. In fact, after graduating in biology at 13, he had declared his intention of completing his medical degree by the time he was 17. The TV serial followed a year later, perhaps even inspired by Bala. Like Doogie Howser, Bala is a brilliant young doctor with a maturity and wisdom far beyond his years. Like Howser, too, he does show flashes of boyish innocence and humour.

Power supply as yet unrestored, I came away seeing in different light the simplicity of a family that finds itself in the limelight, their patience with the irritants of life in Madras after the  luxuries of America, there fierce pride in their Indianness. They appear to have found the right mix of tradition and modernity. They are excellent examples of the merits of the best modern education, aligned with a world-view and nourished by the values of a well-knit, traditional Indian family.

The annual vidwan

Growing up at Suprabha, our home on Murrays Gate Road, meant regular home delivery of haircuts. 

We boys were sat on a stool in our disused garage, and Ekambaram, tall, slim, balding and Hitler-moustachioed, came dressed in his three quarter sleeved white shirt and veshti, and a neat little box of instruments, not very different in appearance from the case our family doctor carried on home visits. Ekambaram had no pretensions to aesthetics. 

To him the hair cut was just that, and the less foliage he left on his poor victim's head at the end of his ministrations the more successful was his mission. My father used to joke that Ekambaram inverted a pot on your head and snipped all round it.

Ekambaram was versatile. On Deepavali morning he was one of our earliest visitors. With his nagaswaram. He was, in addition to being the worst barber in the world, the worst musician as well. 

Normally tight-fisted in the best Mylapore brahmin tradition, my family rose as one man to shower cash and new clothes on Ekambaram. Rather than any philanthropic urges, we owed our generosity to a strong desire to get rid of the assault on our ears.

Watch this space for more on the old practice of barbers doubling as nagaswara vidwans (some of them excellent exponents of both arts).

Notes from Kalakshetra

Part 1

Nostalgia is wishful thinking in reverse gear. At least that could be the worst case scenario when an old man like me settles down with a drink like Mr Mulliner at the Anglers' Bar and begins to unleash his tales of fancy from the past, always seen through rose-tinted spectacles.

At its best, however, nostalgia can make you stop and ponder a while amidst the frenetic business of life. If you happen to be honest and objective, and not a victim of syrupy sentimentality, you can actually take stock of both the past and the present, try to see where we have evolved as humans and artists or sportspersons, and where we have allowed time and technology to force shortcuts on us, thus depriving us of something precious that may never come back.

As a writer on cricket, I am invariably asked to recall the past in fascinating ways my editors conjure up. ''How would the greats of my era have fared in today's cricket?'' is a constant refrain. Every time I succumb to such pressures, I find I annoy as many people as I please. Nostalgia- lovers enjoy these stories from the past, though they often accuse me of playing favourites or forgetting to mention their own heroes. Of course, those who worship at the altar of the spectacular present have little patience with what they see as my partisan preference for the past masters. Sometimes, it can all turn out be a lose-lose situation.

Watching some Kalakshetra dancers and musicians past and present at the recent Bani Festival stitched together by the director of Kalakshetra, her staff and her students, I was curious to test my own nostalgia quotient against acceptable parameters of objectivity.  The chronologically graded format of the programme the evening the Kalakshetra bani was presented enabled me to measure the young talent on view with the remnants of the consummate artistry of the seniors, almost all of them septuagenarians today.

The performances of the youngsters who gave margam displays in groups of six gladdened the heart. I shall write about the individual artists in a later post, but it is good to see that the strong foundation laid by Rukmini Devi and strengthened by the early efforts of the likes of Sarada Hoffman and several other good teachers has resulted in a continuing vibrancy of tradition and excellent adherence to techniques. The all round good taste of the institution still pervades every aspect of the programmes offered by Kalaksetra--from the beautiful stage decor, and lovely costumes (though these have grown more ornate through the decades),  to the well-mannered courtesy and quiet dignity of the staff senior and junior as we;; as the volunteers. I can hear murmurs that chaos occasionally tends to rule, but that is preferable to efficient rudeness. Vocalist Harikrishnan was in sublime form, his raga suddham and seamless, sruti-perfect voice an object lesson to many practitioners of Carnatic music. His elaboration of the raga Sahana was easily the best I have heard in many a summer.  

Among the veteran dancers, Shanta and VP Dhananjayan and A Janardhanan gave us glimpses of the technical skill and poignant interpretation of the lyric and theme that made them special in their heyday, Balagopalan stole the show with his extraordinary abhinaya in a cameo appearance. The nattuvangam by Savithri Jagannatha Rao would have won the approval of the giants of yesteryear. It was firm, precise and dignified.

To return to the ambience that made the event so refreshing, the floor seats were, as always, occupied by studious youngsters and some superfit oldies, eagerly drinking in the action on stage. Here again I could not help remembering how 40 years and more ago, I sometimes joined my wife and children of the family as a member of the tarai ticket audience. (The first hints of our mortality were not so subtly conveyed to us when in time the ushers and usherettes started directing us to the chairs). 

It was from these vantage seats that we watched in awe as Janardhanan and Venkatachalapathy as Rama and Lakshmana, Krishnaveni  as Sita and Balagopalan as Hanuman wove magic before our eyes. That every role in the Ramayana dance drama was paid the utmost attention was illustrated for example by the diminutive Stella Uppal's hypnotic gambolling as the golden deer which made Sita's fascination so believable. The grand music by Mysore Vasudevacharya and others sung by Sitarama Sarma, Pasupathy and others often made you turn year eyes away from the stage towards the orchestra pit. It is no exaggeration to say that Hariprasad and company had a similar effect on us last week.  (To be continued).

HLF Part 3

A festival of people and literature

Hari Mohan Paruvu used to be a tall, strapping young fast bowler. When I met him recently at the Hyderabad Lit Fest, I realised that he was still a tall, strapping fast bowler, though looking slightly older than when he played in the Ranji Trophy during 1985-87.

Hari has become a successful author and life coach, with his books and his movie, his lectures and workshops for cricket aspirants and yes, dance students! I first met him at the Chennai launch of his first novel The Men Within, and remember walking up to him and telling him how much  I enjoyed reading the book (though I don't trust my memory any more). We met again at two book events at Hyderabad (the release there of my Third Man) and Chennai (a discussion on Hari's 50 Not Out and Third Man) moderated by our common friend, the brilliant Krishna Shastri Devulapalli (though anyone who knows Krishna knows that he is incapable of moderating anything).

As I said before, I owed my participation in HLF 2016 to Hari's efforts and he also conducted my panel with admirable flair. I also caught a brief glimpse of his workshop focussing among other things on goal setting for youngsters in the same festival. Hari made me feel welcome at HLF and also took me to Vidyuth Jaisimha's cricket academy, where I struggled to bowl one good ball in six deliveries I attempted, and he gave me evidence that he can still bowl impressively. Looking at him I had no trouble believing his account of his regular stint bowling in the nets, even if he is himself more than 50 not out today.  We had a long and meaningful conversation with his efforts towards sports promotion and teaching of life lessons based on his cricket experiences, and hopefully, our paths will intersect in this regard some day.

The organisers of the festival were a friendly and helpful lot who made the delegates feel at home. Prof. Vijay Kumar was a cheerful, sprightly presence throughout the festival, and Jayesh Ranjan IAS was again a most helpful head of the organising committee. The theme of the festival was most thoughtfully inclusive of the marginalised, such as dalits and transgenders, the differently abled and the differently oriented. I was heartened by the overt support HLF extended to free speech and dissent, nowhere better exemplified than in the pride of place given to Nayantara Sahgal. The sessions featuring Kiran Nagarkar and Pervez Hoodbhoy of Pakistan were brilliant examples of discourse that rose above jingoistic noise(More about these in the next instalment).

Meeting Amala Akkineni after a considerable gap was one of the highlights of my HLF experience. I first met her when she was a teenage student of Chennai's Kalakshetra, one of the brightest talents to have learnt bharatanatyam there, and I watched her grow into a fine dancer, film actor, and burgeoning champion of animal welfare, before she moved to Hyderabad. Listening to her speak at HLF was a revelation: her espousal of the cause of animals and our ecology is marked by such wit and wisdom.

My FB friend Subbarayudu Kameswara did me proud by attending my panel discussion and getting his copy of my book signed by me. The learned professor was soft spoken and modest to a fault. My former State Bank colleague BS Prakash was an enthusiastic visitor to the Lit Fest and possibly its biggest buyer of books. I cannot thank him enough for the trouble he took over me during the three days.

­

HLF Part 2

A festival of people and literature

If Mahesh Rangarajan, the environmental historian, was brilliant in his discourse on Nature and Nation, the anchor Aloka Parasher-Sen was a knowledgeable facilitator. The session left me, an ignoramus on the subject, thirsting for more, proving quite expensive as I bought every book by Mahesh Rangarajan available at the HLF bookstall.

The panel on Free Speech and Censorship was made memorable by Nayantara Sahgal’s gentle and supportive ways with the firebrand Maharashtrian Dalit writer Urmila Pawar, who was initially quite diffident about her lack of English. In this session and a later one, Pawar spoke of how all Dalit writing started out swearing angrily at God. She was not only the first Dalit woman writer from her part of the world , she was the first feminist author as well.

That evening I met my old friend George Abraham, blind, and one of the best communicators I have known,  in the hotel lobby. With him was Shakila Maharaj, a South African, also blind and a communicator. Though ready to drop at the end of a long day, I decided to wait up for George for a cup of coffe at the restaurant after he returned from his visit to a friend. George, a resident of Delhi,  and I go back a long way—since 2000 in fact, when he came to Chennai to organize the cricket  World Cup for the Blind and I interviewed him for the city portal Chennai Online. When we met around 11pm, it was well worth the wait, for George had stories to tell, stories of his exciting media ventures. He even produced a teleserial, Nazar ya Nazariya, stressing the need to empower the physically challenged. His Score Foundation helps people with disability and he is a proud man who has made light of his own disability, caused in childhood by an attack of meningitis.

George’s friend Shakila is a South African of Indian origin who lives in Durban, and speaks with an Irish accent, thanks to her early years in Ireland. Her husband Maharaj defied parental disapproval to marry her despite her disability. Shakila has had a successful career in the fashion business and now does audio descriptions for films so that the blind can enjoy them in the theatre. She has also written a film script, a comedy with three blind men and their loves, with a dash of mystery thrown into it.

If meeting George after a long gap was thrilling, with Shakila, it was instant friendship. It felt great to be accepted with total trust by someone you have just met. The three of us really hit it off.

George’s panel Through the Lens’s Eye had another member, Partho Bhowmick, who incredibly teaches the visually impaired photography. The panel was moderated by
L Subramani, a blind journalist who guided the conversation expertly, bringing out the best in each panellist. When I asked a question during Q&A time, Subramani stunned me—and the audience—by declaring that he once worked under me and that he owed much of his success to me! I, of course, remembered that he had been a sports correspondent reporting to me at Chennai Online. I was not only embarrassed but moved to tears as Subramani dwelt on my sterling but entirely imaginary qualities. I accosted him immediately after the discussion, and said, “Why did you do what you did? You know I never had a kind word for you when we worked together. I was always pulling you up for some lapse or other, even accusing you of laziness.´ “That is what you did for me sir,” Subramani replied. “You made me an honest, hard working journalist not taking advantage of my disability.”

Through the Lens’s Eye was accompanied by a delightful side show orchestrated by the lovely Anju Khemani—who runs the organization Drama for the Deaf—and a number of deaf members of her theatrical troupe, for whose benefit she was signing furiously throughout the session.

The next afternoon, Shakila and Partha Bhowmick were in conversation with Anju Khemani. Both explained their work most interestingly to  a most attentive audience.


I normally do not ask questions at seminars and panel discussions, rather afraid of making a fool of myself, but this time I could not resist the temptation, only I was a bit late off the starting block. Anju said, “We are already running late, but I will allow this one question from a special guest, who took a special interest in a blind employee. In fact, I am going to invite Mr Ramnarayan to HLF again next year.”

It was all rather heady, not at all what I had expected at HLF. Little did I realise, though, that more pleasant surprises were in store on the morrow.

A festival of people and literature

Part I

The Hyderabad Literary Festival has been the undoubted highlight of 2016 so far for me, yet I have taken over two months since my return from the city to post this note. The explanation is simple: I plunged into work, which has included at least three major events I was involved in. This is the first breather I have had in a long while.

It was a memorable experience, even if my own panel discussion, ostensibly centred around my book Third Man was a bit of a damp squib. I’ll come to that later, after I try to recapitulate my many enjoyable moments between 7^th and 10^th January, especially the wonderful interactions with other participants famous and not so famous.

My discovery of the festival was the delightful Nayantara Sahgal, gentle, vulnerable and friendly, not at all like the firebrand I expected, especially after the way she has critiqued the Indira Gandhi family over the last few years, and her crime of returning the Sahitya Akademi award in protest against the fundamentalist violence unleashed against writers and thinkers in the recent past. Her speech at the opening ceremony on the 7^th was a well reasoned plea to all of us, especially writers, to beware of the rising tide of intolerance in the country and resist it with all our might.ESL Narasimhan, the governor of AP and Telangana, spoke like a leader of the Sangh parivar, lambasting Sahgal in words that can only be described as unchivalrous. Over the next few days Sahgal was to frequently tell us how scared she was of the general violence in the air, but how impelled to speak her mind nevertheless for the sake of all of us who wish to safeguard our freedom. Kiran Nagarkar, with Nayantara Sahgal my breakfast mate on a couple of occasions, echoed this fear of Sahgal during his talk at one of the sessions. The theatre and film actor Dr Mohan Agashe had a slightly different say in the matter: he demanded of artists that they deal with threats to freedom through subtlety and circumvention. Both Sahgal and Nagarkar had to deal with rabble rousers apparently planted in their sessions. Nagarkar fielded some of the bullets deftly by declaring his love of our epics, which however did not mean he had to support fundamentalist stances by our politicians and their less cultured allies.

Now to come to my own panel discussion on cricket writing, it became a session about my khadoos Mumbaiyya-Hyderabadi former teammate Vijay Mohan Raj—who came to the organisers’ rescue by filling in for the absent Vijay Lokapally, my would-be fellow panelist—decided the whole hour belonged to him and hogged the strike, not forgetting to deliver a homily on ethics to me and the audience. Poor anchor Harimohan Paruvu, who had worked hard to persuade the festival authorities to invite me as a delegate, was denied the strike for far too long to score. I think I made the best of a bad bargain. At least one member of the audience—Jonathan Gil Harris, distinguished author of The First Firangis—seemed to agree. 

The casualty was my book Third Man, which I was forced to wave frantically at the audience—some of them disappointed stragglers from the next tent where the actor Shriya Saran failed to turn up—to let them know I had actually written a book.

I was not unduly disappointed, because I thoroughly enjoyed the many brilliant lectures and interactions I attended and the wonderful warmth of everyone I met—the organizers, the audience and the delegates. (To be continued)

Tamil films and classical music

Travelling light: a journey in music 

By V Ramnarayan

Chapter 7

It was his friendship with the sons of a couple of film music directors that introduced Krishnan to the use of classical or semi-classical music in Tamil films. He was also an ardent follower of Hindi film music--in fact more interested in it than in Tamil film songs. One of them, Venkatachalam, was the son of KV Mahadevan, arguably the best exploiter of raga music during the 1960s, even more attractive to Krishnan's ears than Viswanathan-Ramamurthi, the star pair among music directors of that era. The other had been Sudarsan, the son of Subbiah Naidu of an earlier vintage. Through these and other friends connected to the film industry, Krishnan accumulated a fair knowledge of the classical and semi-classical music, musicians and others behind the scenes responsible for the high standard of film music then. This is what he pieced together from his conversations with these friends and from reading the newspaper and magazine articles of the time.

Music was king and queen in Indian cinema in the early 20th century. Those were the times when the success of a play or film was measured by the number of songs it featured, when encores prolonged them forever—even in silent films with music performed live in front of the screen by an assembled band.

Before playback singing—India’s brilliant contribution to cinema—came into being, the stars of the day had to do their own singing, but not all of them were musical, while those cast for their singing ability often could not act to save their lives.

The resultant classic was frequently unintentionally funny, but fans were undeterred by such incidental shortcomings, for listening to their heroes and heroines was reward enough.

In Tamil cinema, MK Tyagaraja Bhagavatar was perhaps the biggest draw among the singing stars of yesteryear, i.e., on a long term basis, excluding the sensational screen appearances of musical talents such as MS Subbulakshmi or GN Balasubramaniam, who made a huge mark on classical music.

A classically trained musician, Bhagavatar had a powerful yet pliant and mellifluous voice that traversed a great range and negotiated curves and glissandos seemingly effortlessly to the utter delight of millions of fans. Among these ardent enthusiasts were the cognoscenti as much as the man on the street. For MKT’s music was pure and unalloyed, but with an appeal that transcended that of proscenium concerts. His greatest hit, Haridas, ran for 114 weeks at the Broadway theatre, Chennai, a record that remains unbeaten to date.

Bhagavatar was paired famously with S. D. Subbulakshmi. The duo extemporised on stage to the delight of fans, their electric exchanges leading to their huge success in films like Pavalakkodi and Naveena Sarangadhara. Their songs Siva peruman kripai vendum and Chanchalam teerndinbamura became chartbusters.

SD Subbulakshmi, a discovery of director (and later, husband) K. Subramaniam, was to achieve critical acclaim in his ambitious Tyaga Bhumi (1939), a distinctly feminist film based on a novel by Kalki Krishnamurti that ran into censor trouble because of its “seditious” content. The song Desa sevai seyya vareer by D. K. Pattammal, which backgrounded a procession of freedom fighters, giving musical expression to patriotic sentiment, led to the banning of the film by the British government. Interestingly, the Carnatic musician and composer to have the greatest impact on Tamil film music, Papanasam Sivan, played Sambhu Sastri, the protagonist of Tyaga Bhumi. In an extraordinary reversal, a number of Sivan's compositions for films found their way to the concert stage. They are so classically pure that they are today unrecognisable as film songs.

The other Subbulakshmi, MS, was to lift the medium of cinema to a higher plane when worshipping crowds fell at her feet during the filming of Meera, directed by Ellis R. Dungan and masterminded by husband Sadasivam. For all the huge popularity of Kalki Krishnamurti’s Katrinile varum geetam and Anda nalum vandidado from this tale of a young female Rajasthani saint, their impact could not exceed by too much that of Ma Ramanan (Papanasam Sivan) from her debut film Seva Sadanam, based on Premchand’s reformist novel (made by that man K. Subramaniam, who else?). The song served to redefine film music with its unadulterated classicism; it has in fact passed into the mainstream of the Carnatic concert oeuvre.

Sakuntalai, a musical based on Kalidasa’s classic, had earlier starred that matinee idol among Carnatic musicians, G. N. Balasubramaniam, opposite M.S. The pair was a huge draw and the box office was kept busy by this extravaganza by Dungan. The duets Premaiyil yavum and Manamohananga anangey were responsible for that success.

Carnatic vocalist S. Rajam and his younger brother S. Balachandar were both to sing songs in films in which they acted. In fact, Balachandar, a child prodigy who became famous as a veena player, was a versatile all rounder, who acted in and directed films, besides playing many instruments.

Arguably the greatest all round star among the singer-actors of Tamil cinema was
P. U. Chinnappa, who came to films via the same route that Tyagaraja Bhagavatar took: stage plays. Chinnappa could act and that is where he was different from some of the other heroes like Bhagavatar and G. N. Balasubramaniam, essentially singers who strayed into films. Following in his father’s footsteps, Pudukkottai Ulaganatha Pillai Chinnasami became a stage actor at age five, in 1922. The play Sadaram, the story of a thief, catapulted Chinnappa to fame. His films Aryamala, Kannagi, Jagadalapratapan and Harishchandra established him as a leading actor, who besides singing his own songs, fought his own fights, with mastery over a number of martial arts.

An unusual singing star was K. B. Sundarambal, a box office draw for her golden voice and the devotional fervour of her singing. Both on stage and in films, she captured the hearts of her adoring audiences, playing both male and female roles with consummate ease. Her stage and life partner S. G. Kittappa was perhaps the most talented singer the Tamil stage had seen, and together, they made history. Sundarambal sang songs that were to become evergreen melodies in such films as Nandanar, Manimekhalal, Avvaiyar, Tiruvilaiyadal and Poompuhar. Her performance as Avvai, the Tamil poet-saint, was so convincing that a whole generation of children believed her to be the original Avvai Patti.

Another singing role she played was male, that of Nandan in Nandanar, which also had the classical vocalist Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer in it! In Manimekhalai, which followed, Sundarambal was paired with Kottamangalam Cheenu, a fine singer who was later consigned to oblivion. A later version of Nandanar Charitram, had the peerless Dandapani Desigar, playing the role of a dalit devotee, and singing movingly in his ringing baritone.

Another popular male vocalist, who made it big in the 1940s and 50s, was a namesake of the greatest flautist Carnatic music has known. TR Mahalingam was one of those singing stars who bagged acting roles because of their singing ability, but he was a success in both romantic songs and bhakti music. Chittoor V. Nagiah was another famous actor capable of singing his own songs, for he was a fully trained Carnatic vocalist, a conscientious one at that. For his role as Tyagaraja in the film on the celebrated composer’s life, he reportedly took lessons from GNB and Musiri Subramania Iyer, himself a singing star in and as Tukaram.

Of South India’s singing stars of a more recent vintage, P Bhanumati and Rajkumar achieved greater fame than most. Bhanumati who later became the principal of the Government Music College, Madras, was a classically trained vocalist who had early success singing her own songs in Tamil and Telugu, but the Kannada star was a late bloomer, who yet became an enduring icon in his dual role. Like Bhanumati, S. Varalakshmi was another actress from Andhra who had a nice singing voice and used it to effect in films.

Around 1960, Krishnan had heard the mellow vocie of PB Srinivas for the first time--under the music direction of MB Srinivasan, the original whose experiments in choral music involving Indian tunes gave some memorable film songs. It was at Tuticorin's Charles theatre that Krishnan saw such movies as Paathai Teriyudu Paar in which the two Srinivas (an)s had collaborate dto produce some glorious music.

G Ramanathan, SV Venkataraman and Adinarayana Rao were among south Indian music directors in films to deploy classical music to great effect in their movies. The first two were perhaps the top two music directors of the 1940s. Continuing to be prominent in the 1950s, GR composed the music for nearly a hundred films. Among his significant efforts was his turning Subramania Bharati's verses into film songs.

A landmark film of the 1960s was Tiruvilaiyadal, based on the Tamil myth of Tiruvilaiyadal Puranam, featuring the many miracles of Lord Siva who appeared in human form on earth. Though the main male singer of the film was TM Soundararajan, it also had one song  by Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna, the famous Carnatic vocalist, who later became a Sangita Kalanidhi of the Madras Music Academy. Krishnan found it intriguing that in a scene in which a Tamil singer and a north Indian vocalist compete in court, TMS (the Tamil voice of Sivaji Ganesan) defeats Balamuralikrishna as lip-synced by TS Baliah, though to his ears the so-called north Indian's ragamalika (Oru naal poduma) sounded superior to TMS's Gaurimanohari (Paattum naane).

Another song by Balamuralikrishna, Tangaratham from the film Kalai Kovil was a sensational hit. The film had its excellent music composed by veena vidwan Chittibabu, whom Krishnan had the pleasure of meeting, when they were both waiting at a bus stop! Imagine a top-flight musician of today depending on public transport! Krishnan found the charismatic  artist with a sizable fan following among the young to be a simple and unaffected young man.