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SINGAPORE, December 15, 2004: (HPI note: This report appeared in the International Herald Tribune.)



She was known as the “nightingale of India,” but that scarcely captured what Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi – who died on Saturday at the age of 88 – was all about. Known widely as just “M.S.,” she was the greatest singer of Carnatic music, the South Indian genre that’s considered to be one of the oldest systems of devotional music in the world. Subbulakshmi was more than a voice – she was the very embodiment of a centuries-old music tradition that lives on in the homes of millions of Indians in the subcontinent and around the globe.



While maestros like Pandit Ravi Shankar of India and the late Nusrat Ali Khan of Pakistan, along with the show-biz tunes of Bollywood, put South Asian pop-classical music on the global map, it was Subbulakshmi who introduced Carnatic music to the West. She enthralled audiences with her mellifluous voice that captured the seven talas – or rhythmic cycles – and 72 fundamental ragas – or melodic scales – of the genre in a way that could only be characterized as mesmerizing. She sang bhajans, or spiritual songs, in 12 Indian languages in venues ranging from her native Chennai to Carnegie Hall.



In a career that started when she was 13 years old, Subbulakshmi performed before audiences all over the world, and received scores of awards, including the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor. But perhaps her greatest accomplishment was that she enticed an entire new generation of young Indians to Carnatic music.



Today, even young Indians living in the United States and other places, start their day listening to “Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatam,” a hymn invoking the blessings of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh (HPI notes: Actually, Lord Vishnu as Venkateswara, click here). Sreenath Sreenivasan, a professor at Columbia University, tells of how his two-year-old twins nod while the hymn is played in the household every morning.



That the Sreenivasan twins – and their Indian-born parents – in New York should listen to Subbulakshmi says something important about the preservation of Indian culture at a time when it’s under siege by the Westernization wrought by globalization. Subbulakshmi took Carnatic music out of the concert halls and injected it into everyday people’s homes.



It is music that, while indigenous to India’s south and its temple-based Hindu culture, appeals to listeners across the board because of its emotion and spirit of improvisation. Indian classical music is categorized under two genres. The best known is Hindustani, developed in the north of the country, in the form of ghazals, Sufi mystical music, and the sitar, which Shankar popularized in the West.



What Subbulakshmi did was to advance the system codified by Purandara Dasa, a 15th century guru, who codified Carnatic music and gave it an identifiable format as a medium of teaching, performing, prayer and therapy. It was Purandara Dasa, and subsequent gurus, who influenced Subbulakshmi.



Subbulakshmi, with the help of her husband, T. Sadasivam, drew attention to the works of three saint-composers of the 19th century – Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Shyama Shastri – by organizing concerts featuring thousands of songs that remain favorites. As Subbulakshmi explained to me some years ago when I met her and Sadasivam at their modest Chennai home, the lyrics of the traditional Carnatic compositions, whether mythological or social in nature, are set entirely against a devotional or philosophical background.



I asked her if she was surprised that Carnatic music had caught on among India’s contemporary youth. No, was her response, it was testimony to the innate power of the genre to induce tranquillity and energy. In an age when young Indians, as young people everywhere, are obsessed with career advancement and gaining prosperity, Subbulakshmi’s singing offered a welcome musical interlude as well as an opportunity for personal renewal.



Hers was a public life led very privately. She donated millions of dollars to charities. Subbulakshmi once said that she would stop giving concerts if her husband, Sadasivam, died. He died a few years ago, after which she only sang on private occasions, mainly to raise money for struggling musicians. She was already a legend. Her voice and music, summoning up India’s ancient traditions of peace and devotion to communal harmony, will always be with us, will always be relevant in a world of increasing tensions. What better legacy could this legendary figure have left?

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