Today, 13 April 2008, marks the 18^th death anniversary of the legendary genius from Madras, Padmabhushan Veena Vidwan S.Balachander, who passed away suddenly at Bhilai, while on a trip, on 13 April 1990. He was barely 63, having been born on 18 Jan 1927. Heaven knows what great further heights he would have achieved if he were alive today. He was my maternal uncle, the younger brother of my mother Saraswathi. I shall try to maintain objectivity and not get the relationship vitiate this tribute in terms of bias.

He was a child prodigy, later evolving into a full-fledged genius. His lifetime has been marked by outstanding original and innovative contributions and achievements at different times in the fields of (1) cinema, in its widest sense (2) music, starting with wide catholicity and eventually personifying the Veena (3) chess, as a youngster and (4) a thinker, researcher, intellectual and a polemist. His mastery covered singing, film acting, screenwriting, story writing, film editing, music composition, lyrics writing, film direction, playing instruments like kanjira, tabla, harmonium, sitar, surbahar, dilruba, veena etc, oratory, writings, researching, photography, gourmetise (not in dictionary), games, cricket, and what not.

My parents lived in Triplicane and I used to spend days on end in the Mylapore residence of my mother’s parents and brothers at 12, Nadu Street. That house was a central, congregational beehive of cultural and music activities. My grandpa, Advocate V.Sundaram Iyer, was an inveterate katcheri and music-fiend as much as he avoided the law courts and katcheris. He entertained at home the music greats such as Ariyakudi, Madurai Mani, Muthiah Bhagawathar, and many others. This provided the fertile ground for the efflorescence of the uncommon and innate music talents of S.Balachander and his elder brother S.Rajam.

My Nadu Street remembrances start with “Chandru mama” (Balachander uncle) already being a famous film actor and hero. His Vauxhall Wyvern (No. 3537) was the only visible car on the long street. Extremely fair complexioned as he was, he shone like mother of pearl after his morning bath. Standing in front of the upper mirror on the almirah door, he would comb his hair for twenty minutes, adoring as it were his own Adonis image. His handsomeness begged description. Close to that storage almirah was another glass-doored one displaying all his silver cups and medals. And Chandru mama would sometimes take me and my cousin Babu (son of my Periyamma, Jayalakshmi) for a Marina–Beach drive. He loved children. I mean ‘us’ particularly. He would often shell out a ten rupee note to Babu and me – inseparable then- to go and see films. Jack and the Beanstalk, Helen of Troy, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello starrers, Laurel and Hardy starrers and the like thus came under our happy film-going!

Balachander was a young chess prodigy. He won tournaments in Madras and elsewhere. He perhaps played some international matches too. The then Chess Problemist and Chess Editor of the Times of Ceylon, Mr. N.S.Muthuswami, has noted his fond remembrances of the boy wonder Balachander who mesmerized the chess enthusiasts in Ceylon when he played a tournament there. As a young boy, I too was fond of chess and was good at it if not great. But my Chandru mama never played chess with me. He was already a celebrity in Madras as a young man and had little time to get involved in a long game. My mother’s elder sister S.Jayalakshmi, who became famous after acting in ‘Sivakavi’ opposite Tyagaraja Bhagavathar, would happily spend hours playing chess with me as a small boy, and she was really good at it. Chandru mama’s chess trophies adorned the glass almirah that I have already referred to.

S.Balachander (SB as he was referred to by many) made a great name even as a teenager simultaneously in cinema and music. There was not a household in Madras that did not know his name. I remember the Nadu Street house overflowing with newspaper clippings of reports on SB day after day. After his film “Nadu Iravil” (1966), SB took ‘sanyas’ from cinema, and became a total devotee of Saraswathi Veena which he had mastered so fast due to his inborn genius that he became the foremost Veena Virtuoso in India. I feel that his past cinematic achievements were not only put away by him into cold storage as irrelevant but thrown into the Couvum river as if repudiated by him. This I would think was sad in a way. But he had sound reasons. As a Saraswathi Veena devotee, he had turned into a spiritual Yogi, and the cinema world, commonly understood as a tinsel world of glamour and glitter, became total anathema to him. It is sometimes said that the gossip-mongering and tanpura-carrying sage Narada was the inventor of veena. Narada was the patron saint of music in any case. But it is goddess Saraswathi on whose lap the veena rests permanently. Saraswati veena is the most ancient form of veena as per some accounts and the other types such as rudra veena, gottu vadhyam, jantri veenas and vichitraveena are later derivatives.

SB AND CINEMA

Although SB’s heights of achievements, even getting him international plaudits, were more considerable and lasting in music and veena that preoccupied him in his later life, I shall initially take up here his cinematic achievements that made him a household name in Madras and made him famous all over the South.

But his cinematic career involved music too. “Chandru” was a six year old boy when he played Kanjira in  Ravana’s Court Scene in the film “Seetha Kalyanam” (1933/34) filmed in Kolhapur and produced by the great V.Shantaram. As he was an agile and restless boy, it was difficult to make the boy Chandru sit in one place. So, a Lakshman Rekha in chalk was drawn on the floor around Chandru, who was forbidden from transgressing it! My grandpa acted as Janaka, uncle Rajam acted as Rama, aunt (Periyamma) acted as Seetha and my mother Saraswathi acted as Urmila in that picture!

n the film ‘Rishyasringar’ (1941), the handsome boy Chandru all of 13 years, acted as the eponymous character. If you remember this story in Mahabharata, the young and virtuous tapasvi-boy Rishyasringar, invited by the King, brings rain to the parched kingdom. He marries Shanta, the king’s daughter. In real life too, SB married Shantha, my dear and wonderful aunt! Ranjan and Vasundra Devi acted in it.The young SB sang some memorable songs most wonderfully in that film. As a youngster later on, I used to listen to those 78 RPMs and I even imbibed and sang them in my own fashion. One song was “En arumai maaney, unnudaney naaney, vilayaaduveyney, ingu wa wa, ingu wa wa”. Having recently finished my vocal Hindustani madhyama, I venture to say that it was in raag Tilak Kamod/Nalina kanthi. I stand to correction. Another lovely song by the boy-prodigy was “Idhuvum en punyamey”. It was in raag Tilang, and no guessing there. A third captivating song by the Chandru boy was “Suprajyothi sooryan idho” (my guess is Bageshree raag). The gamakas and the taans were rendered so beautifully by Chandru. His elder brother S.Rajam, now 90, who is a renowned Carnatic vocalist and a Classical painter, believes that Chandru could not have however taken to the vocal line in Carnatic music as he did not possess a suitable ‘voice’. I almost feel like refuting it here since several famous Carnatic singers have got away with terrible voices and they survived only by techniques and devotion. But Rajam Mama has had a divine voice and the younger brother would have had some trouble in beating him there. Besides, Chandru’s dextrous fingers could make about fifteen musical instruments sing, thanks to the divine grace upon him, and he did the right thing in not continuing with his vocal path.

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n the film “Manuneedhi Chozhan” (1942), SB acted as the king’s son. The NS Krishnan – TA Madhuram comedy-jodi was very much there in that film. Chandru was now 15 and his father wanted him to fritter away less energy and time in film acting. But Chandru would go to the Gemini Studios and there he absorbed all that made him a film music director at a very young age.

SB’s next film was “Idhu Nijama” (1948) when he was only 20, with a double-role hero status in it. He also wrote the screen play and composed music for it. He sang some wonderful songs in it, composed of carnatic elements, hindustani elements, western classical elements, sheer comic elements etc! I can still sing parts of his song “Charochora bhajana..maarubalka..jahanmiyaam jahanmiyaam ..” SB was brilliantly quirky with the song lyrics (one of the twin brothers lived in London, you see) and SB sang “So jaa rajakumara so jaa..afterwards you can’t marry Nalini ..” etc! There were words in the lyrics such as Radio, Antonio, Romeo, Thayirwadaiyo etc and at that time this was really bold experimentation by SB. SB uncle arranged to take me (tiny boy) and my mother to see the movie. I was very impressed by the film but was distressed by scenes where SB smoked cigarettes, taboo in our orthodox family, and could not believe (I asked myself ‘idhu nijama?’) that he could do it!

Oh, there is a world of things to write about SB’s all-round movie-genius. However, I respect his total dissociation from movies later on, and hence shall try to make his movie-chapter as brief as possible.

Busy as he was with his veena concerts and constant at-home veena practice and experimentation, SB was selective with regard to films. He mostly acted as a hero. The films where he continued to act were En Kanavar (1948), Devaki (1951), Kaidhi (1951), Rajambal (1951), Rani (1952), Inspector (1953), Penn (1954), Koteeswaran (1950, Doctor Savitri (1955), and Maragatham (1959). In various films in this list, he was film director, music director, film editor, singer and screenplay writer! He acted with a string of famous heroines such as Vyjayantimala, Madhuri Devi and Anjali Devi.

SB achieved his greatest cinematic laurels directing the film “Andha Naal” (1954) where Sivaji Ganesan played the main role. SB was just 27 years old then! It was a slick murder mystery with no songs and dances. This created history of sorts. The film bagged several awards. The famous latter-day film directors such as K.Balachander, Mani Ratnam and Ameer have gone on record to say that “Andha Naal” was one of the ten best Tamil movies ever to have been made.

SB floated his own Film Company called “SB Creations” in the early 1960s. This Company was responsible for three excellent film creations, Avanaa Ivan (1962) where SB plays an anti-hero, Bommai (1964) for which SB also composed six songs, and introduced the now famous KJ Yesudos to sing one of them, and Nadu Iravil (1966),which turned out to be his farewell film.

HERO AT HOME

SB was obviously also a hero for us in the Nadu Street house. Though a star, he paid attention to me and to my cousins, all of us youngsters. He would give us quizzes and puzzles and confuse us, and take delight in it! Once, he called my cousin Babu and me, while holding a big rotating globe in his hands. He said, “I will name a city and whoever finds it first on the globe will get ten rupees from me”. A great challenge! He said “North Pole”. Babu and I took half an hour to be able not to still find it! Finally Chandru mama said,”Poda, muttaalgalaa, idhaan North Pole”! The word ‘Muttal’ came to this genius very naturally, and sometimes as an endearment! Though we had failed, SB gave us ten rupees each for the half an hour we were mad!

As a tiny boy, I was very quick at mental arithmetics, particularly additions and subtractions. SB would take pleasure in testing me and my cousins with questions in this area. I was always quick with correct answers though I was quite dumb in many other ways! Once, as we were having such a session, Mama picked up casually a shaving blade lying perilously on the floor. He inserted one blunt end into a tiny crevice in a wooden furniture. To our amazement, the blade was turned into a musical instrument! SB AND MUSICAL WORLD

SB’s real multifaceted genius was in the musical arena. By six, he was playing Kanjira (tambourine). While shooting for “Seetha Kalyanam” at Kolhapur, this six year old boy was presented with a tabla set by the great V.Shantaram. SB became a versatile percussionist soon. He played Kanjira, tabla and ghatam. Even as an yet-to–be teenager, he accompanied his elder brother vocalist S.Rajam on all-India and foreign concert tours, playing percussion with him. While at Karachi in 1938, SB was presented with a sitar by Krishna Bai. He was barely 11 years old then. He mastered sitar in no time and began going on concert tours playing Carnatic music on sitar! From percussion instruments, he now changed over to string instruments which he mastered on his own. While working as a Radio Artiste at the All India Radio for three years, from his 15^th to 18^th year, he played a variety of instruments and broadcast them, making experiments and fantastic improvisations. And when he was 18, Veena beckoned him whole time. As they say, the rest is history.

I had heard an account from some now-forgotten source some three decades ago that once in SB’s dream when he was 18, Goddess Saraswathi appeared and told him to concentrate only on her veena and to give up all other musical instruments. My Shantha mami recently clarified to me that this is not a true story. Anyway, no musician of repute can devote himself to more than one instrument at a time, or else he will be a great expert in none.

SB’s devotion to veena was actually an obsession, addiction and even worship. Later on, in his home on Sullivans Garden Street, Mylapore, he would disappear into his puja room for hours on end, experimenting with his veena and practising on it, with religious fervour. He turned veena from a “chamber instrument“ to a “concert instrument”. He travelled all over the world giving veena concerts. At one time, he had the largest number of LPs cut, to his credit, amongst all musicians. He was friends with Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin. When I was in Paris for a specialisation course (1974-76), he and Shantha Mami made a memorable four day trip to that lovely city. He came to give a concert. His veena would travel with him everywhere in a huge casket. I took SB and his wife all over Paris by the underground metro. I was their interpreter. So worshipful of veena SB was that even his signature was in the shape of a veena.

SB’s veena. Note SB’s writing ‘Gopal and Revathi’ in blue colour on the album cover. His signature (on the right extreme, in maroon colour), after the word “from” is in the shape of a veena! This was in 1969.

The handsome young man had become bald but he still charmed people.  Accolades and awards were no strangers to him. He was called many things –veena vidwan, veena maestro, veena virtuoso, veena chakravarty etc  and finally he came to be known as “Veena S.Balachander”. He signified veena and veena signified him. He was given Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1977. I was present at the award presentation by the President of India in Delhi. He was a recipient of the Padmabhushan National Award. He was awarded Honorary doctorate by the WorldAcademy of Arts and Culture. He trained many promising young vainikas, and some of them have now become famous. Amongst them are Gayathri Ramachandran (Narayanan) and SV Madhavan. He produced audaciously and most diligently compositions in the 72 Melakartha Ragas, available in CDs. These are janaka or primary ragas. The concept is simple. There are sapta swaras (komals excluded). You take the sapta swaras with shudha madhyam. You eliminate one swara at a time and make an arohi/avarohi with the remaining six swaras. So, you will get 36 raga patterns, that is 6X6, thereby. If you use teevra madhyam instead of shuddha madhyam, you get another set of 36 raga patterns. Thus, in all, one gets 72 (36+36) basic janaka ragas called Melakartha patterns. From these, several hundreds of derivative ragas called janya ragas arise.

I am no expert in Carnatic music. Yet, the point has to be discussed as to how SB was considered a veena genius whereas there are hundreds of expert veena artistes in the country. Here, we have to look at what genius is and means. Genius consists in innovation, novelty, creativity, originality, discovery, experimentation, trend setting, unique virtuosity, changing norms, concepts and standards etc. Popular recognition as well as producing of public impact or benefits is an essential mark of a creative genius. Genius should strictly apply in arts, music, literature, science and mathematics. The word is often being misused for cricket players, politicians, industrialists, lawyers, doctors etc!

SB created a revolution of his own in veena playing. He was entirely self-taught in veena and had no teacher, the first sign of a genius.The first and foremost credit to him relates to making the veena a ‘concert instrument’ from its old status as a ‘chamber instrument’, meant for small chamber-audiences. He was the first person to popularize it abroad. His techniques were virtuosity based. Gamakas and meends became his hallmark. He introduced close-miking and electronic amplification. He emphasized layas and taalaas. He considered Pallavis and alapanas as important and challenging must-renditions for any great veena player. It is said that SB could play six notes on a single fret. He created a new style of veena-playing, called “Balachander Bani”.There were disapproving critics of SB’s manner of veena playing too. The late Subbudu (PV Subramaniam), a known music critic, who was my father’s first cousin, was an inveterate hostile critic of SB. See, it is all in the family! SB’s own father, if I may say it here, is said to have disapproved of the vigorous plucking of the strings that sometimes SB extravagantly indulged in. Some connoisseurs thought that SB’s alapanas were even north Indianish! Some said that SB indulged in too much of gamakas that led to apaswarams also. By definition, a genius cannot get universal acclaim, and dissenters there will be!

I have attended some of my uncle’s concerts and mostly found them to be glorious although at that time my acquaintance with classical music was so little. I have been moved by his playing of some ragas, especially Yaman Kalyan. Often a genius has temperamental angularities and SB was sometimes uncharitably short tempered. His mridangist had to be very careful or else he got a dressing down in public. Crying children and moving rasikas (non-rasikas?) irritated him beyond all measure. He would then simply stop playing! It is strange that SB is not known in the North –except by musicians – where you have so many women and girls named Veena! In the northern land of sitar, sarod, sarangi and santoor, I have not come across any female carrying any of these names!

SB THE INTELLECTUAL

And lastly, we arrive at SB’s intellectual qualities. He cultivated his intellect by reading, listening and interactions. Though he went to P S High Scool in Mylapore, he never completed his schooling; he had started working as a staff artiste in AIR while still a minor, and his father would go to the AIR office every month to do the paper-work and also sign on his behalf for his salary. His mastery over English was remarkable. His speeches were gems and he was a Cicero in oratory. He never needed a PR man. His personal gusto and motivation and drive took care of his increasing fame. His writings on music and musicology are innumerable and are considered a treasure trove. His polemics with Semmangudi during SB’s last years are widely known. SB even challenged that Swathi Thirunal ever composed and even doubted that he ever existed. The music loving public in Madras loved the music controversies too! SB would never speak off-hand and he had a keen researching brain. He buttressed his case by marshalling various facts.

FAMILY MATTERS

When I made it to the IAS in 1962, SB uncle was one of those most thrilled by it. Overnight I, a bumbling boy, became a phenomenal man in his proud eyes. He visited me and stayed with me and my wife Revathy during his Bombay trips. When I was posted in Delhi too, he never missed visiting me. On one occasion, in Delhi, my wife had a strange (horrifying?) experience of serving him cut water melon pieces for dessert, after a meal, and she long remembered the distaste with which he looked at them!  He was very fond of Revathy for her education, culture, manners and qualities. I used to get letters from him from Madras from time to time, written by him in multiple colours and in huge letterings. There was always a bon mot or a piece of humour at the end of each letter. Thank God, I have preserved them.

The handsome young SB married in 1953 in Tirupati, when he was 26 or so. His bride Shantha was an English lit student and was lovely and beautiful, and still is. As a boy, I was a witness to the sacred wedding. Shantha mami is a paragon of all virtuous qualities and such women are rare. Their only child SBS Raman, now a High Court Advocate, was born on 5-5-55. As a bright young man he married the beauteous Dharma, an asset in every way to the Shantha household. Ramoo and Dharma have three bright children. The eldest Baradwaj has already started giving veena concerts. Tara is a beautiful and accomplished Bharata Natyam dancer already with rave press reviews. Young Surya is a dynamo, and his body and brain are always in high kinetic modes. SBS Raman himself has tremendous musical tastes and has even learnt veena for some time. He is now collecting all SB’s musical archival materials from all parts of the world.

I shall end this on a funny note. In an in-house cultural program organized by SICOM, Bombay, of which I was the Managing Director, I had rendered a Talat Mehmood song (“Jaayen to jaayey kahaan”) with music accompaniment. I had it recorded on a cassette. During SB’s visit to my place, I played it to him expecting some clear-cut appreciation. And he said after hearing it, “Sari, naal aNaa kodukkalaam’!! (OK, it is worth four annas). (END)

(by Dr.V.S.Gopalakrishnan Ph.D., IAS retd)  13 Apr 2008  written from personal experiences, family anecdotes, published articles and some google texts.

Ref : Sulekha.com