The year was 1979. The hippies were drifting away. The universalism of the sixties and the seventies was wearing off with them. Democracies had stabilized and military dictators were bringing a semblance of uneasy calm to their territories. India was making a valiant attempt to come out of the gloom of the Emergency. The world seemed to be heading to a better place. Two events, though, would perhaps inextricably change the world for several decades to come.
A popular movement by students, maulvis, and leftists led to the overthrow of the Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty of Iran, installing the US-backed Ayatollah Khomeini as its supreme leader. Towards the end of the year, the Grand Mosque of Mecca, considered to be the holiest place for a billion Muslims, was besieged by armed militants with a goal to dislodge the royal family of Saudi Arabia. Their motive was to return to the "original ways of Islam" and repudiate everything perceived to be western - TV, sports, music, and materialism. The terrorists held the mosque hostage for over two weeks before the Saudi army stormed in and reclaimed the holy place with the help of French Commandos. Hundreds were killed on both sides. These events, some argue, moved Iran and Saudi Arabia further towards state-sanctioned religiosity, which would shape the events to come in the Middle East and across the world for decades.
1979 and the turn of the decade was going to prove to be a landmark in Balu's career. Why? One, because he was going to tread into uncharted musical territory, which would fetch him his first national award. Two, because he would literally tread into uncharted territory, up north, helping him bag his second national trophy. Balu was going national!
First things first. What was the "uncharted musical territory" that I had referred to? The one-word answer for that is Shankarabharanam. Balu had, by then, emerged as the undisputed singing voice of the South crooning for a multitude of situations and emotions. But he had so far kept
a safe social distance from pure classical numbers. It was not a deal-breaker. These were not the
fifties and sixties where classical training was mandatory to become a successful singer in the South. But, it must have nagged him for sure, that he had not had the time to get classically trained. In fact, his dad, had always desired for him to be formally schooled in the Carnatic tradition and have him perform at least one full-fledged classical concert in his lifetime - it would remain an unfulfilled wish till Balu's last breath.
His cousin was there to help matters to a certain extent. Kasinadhuni Viswanath, popularly known as K Viswanath, was Balu's first cousin and fifteen years his elder. Although he had been directing movies since the sixties, it was with the 1976 socio-cultural masterpiece, 'Siri Siri Muvva' that he catapultedto fame. When my dad bought our first ever television - a black-and-white, Televista Solid State TV; a huge rectangular box that weighed a ton and cost a fortune - we had invited all our Mylapore colony neighbors over to our home, distributed sweets, savories, and filter coffee, and celebrated the occasion by watching the first available program on the lone channel on TV - Doordarshan. It was the movie, 'Siri Siri Muvva'.
In 1979, K Viswanath remade it into 'Sargam', which turned out to be one of the biggest hits that year. In subsequent years, he made landmark movies in Telugu - delicate human stories rooted in Indian culture and fine arts sans the typical melodrama and jingoistic lecturing. These were perhaps the first movies since the advent of talkies that broke
the language barrier even in the South. People often think of the South as a monolith. It is not. Like in the rest of India, one has to only step across the border into a neighboring state and lo! Languages, artistic tastes, literacy rates, political affiliations, and matinee idols changed as if with a flip of a switch. K Viswanath was among a handful in the South whose work could get a permit to cross over to neighboring states (Balu was, of course, the foremost example of that).
K Viswanath gave his first cousin the onerous task of singing eight out of the ten Carnatic-based songs for his new movie, 'Shankarabharanam' ('Jewel of Lord Shiva'). He had named his film after the first Melakarta raga in the Carnatic tradition. The movie was based on the story of a famous
classical singer and his journey through life, with a broader message about the state of classical
arts in India.
(P.S. Melakarta ragas are the parent heptatonic scales that form the base of Carnatic music. They are somewhat similar in concept to the thaats of the Hindustani system. There are a total of seventy-two Melakarta ragas. Hindustani uses ten thaats).
I remember watching the movie in jam-packed, sub-urban Jayanthi Theater in Thiruvanmiyur, Madras. I didn't realize it then. But I have perhaps never seen an audience responding to an artsy movie like they did to 'Shankarabharanam', that too in a language they didn't understand. The hero was not Rajnikanth; it was fifty-year old, debutant Somayajalu (he already looked seventy-five). There were no item songs, sensuous heroines partaking in rain dances, or foot-tapping numbers to stop the audience from taking beedi breaks. And yet, K Viswanath managed to keep his audience engrossed purely with the plot tension. And then there was the music and Balu's voice.
When the music was being recorded, composer KV Mahadevan and his assistant Pugazhendhi were confident that Balu was up to the task. Balu wasn't so sure. Pugazhendhi took personal responsibility for coaching Balu and put him through a six-month regimen to prepare the voice that had captivated the south with its "soft" music to sing saint-composers, Thyagaraja and Bhakta Ramadasu's kirtanas, and KV Mahadevan's head-spinning sangatis and swarams. Balu had to manage the training and his sadhana at the near-peak of his career when he was recording between five and ten songs a day.
The movie paid rich dividends for the entire cast and crew. It won numerous state, national, and international awards. Balu won his
first National Award for the song, 'Omkara nadhalu' based on the raagam, Shankarabharanam with beautiful lyrics by the legendary Veturi Sudararamamurthy.
Let us get one thing straight as an arrow, folks. Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam , aka SPB aka Balu is the God of playback singing. Well, you may shrug your shoulders and say, that is too much of a sweeping encomium, even for someone as accomplished as Balu. Bestowing godliness upon a musically untrained film singer just because he is the recent sentimental favorite, is not how it works, you may argue. You may further contend that India brims with eminent musical talent that can perform unfathomable feats. Artists that: hit perfect pitch effortlessly; sing chittaswarams at the speed of Usain Bolt; utter swerving sargams @ a thousand rpm without moving a facial nerve; and milk the essence of seventy-two melakarta ragas in an eight-minute kirtana. So, what is the big deal about this Balu guy, you may ask? My counter to you would be: Yup. I get all of that (ok, I don't). But when it comes to film music, the most popular and the most egalitarian form of music there is i
The term "Golden Age" has its origins in Greek and Roman mythology and is perhaps maligned in its casual overuse, especially in the filmy context. Many a superannuated artiste and film technician have tried to usurp that moniker for the era that they had peaked in. The Greeks had referred to the Golden Age to mean a mythical age of harmonious utopia, where everyone lived a virtuous life like MGR (of his movies). The gods and humans freely co-mingled and were often indistinguishable. Hindu mythology had an equivalent for it called the "Satya Yuga". When scribes and historians ascribe a certain period as a golden age, they are probably thinking of a few things: convergence of talents, great partnerships, and memorable creative output that stands the test of time. For example, the 1950s and 60s are called the Golden Age of Hindi Film music because great music composers, singers, lyricists, actors, and directors descended into Bombay at almost the same time and produced
Let us start from where it all began. SP Balasubrahmanyam was born in Konetampet (present-day Tiruvallur district, Tamilnadu), a year before India’s independence, in an orthodox, Telugu brahmin family that hailed from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. His father, SP Sambamurthy, was a Harikatha exponent and his mother, Sakunthalamma, looked after the bounteous family of three brothers and five sisters, that included SP Shailaja, who would go on to become a popular playback singer later in life. A TWIST OF FATE Growing up, in the early 60s, SPB had a typical Indian, sub-urban dream: to become an engineer, qualify to be a khaki-clad gazetted officer in his native Nellore, and ride around in an official Jeep eliciting salutes from his subordinates and the public. He was definitely artistically endowed. He sang and won prizes in music competitions, acted in school plays, and even formed a music band of his own, but had never taken his talents seriously. He enrolled into Jawaharlal Nehru Technical
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