Magic of Palghat Mani Iyer

The mridangam maestro announced his retirement at the age of 68, on 15 April

How does a man come to have Vairagya (dispassion) ? A wife once said to her husband, "dear, I am very anxious about my brother. For the past one week he has been thinking of becoming an ascetic, and has been busy preparing for that life. He is trying to reduce gradually all his desires and wants." the husband replied, "Dear, be not at all anxious about your brother. He will never become a "Sanyasin" . No one can become a Sanyasin in that way."

"How does one become a Sanyasin then?" asked the wife. "Thus" exclaimed the husband, so saying, he tore his flowing dress to pieces, took a piece and tied it round his loins, and told his wife that she and all of her sex were thenceforth mothers to him. He left the house, never more to return.

- Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna

This parable of Bhagvan Ramakrishna Paramahamsa came to my mind after reading Palghat Mani Iyer’s Tamil New Year’s Day announcement that he is renouncing the concert platform. One is sure he will stick to his decision. Knowing him only too well, one can presume this.

Mani Iyer learnt from his father Palghat Subba Iyer the rudiments of the mridangam art. Rhythm is a strong point with Keralites what with their reverberating chendai used in Kathakali. Mani was attracted by it. Even now he uses chendai permutations. But, while the chendai is "beaten", the mridangam is "played". In Kerala, they say mridangam kottarathu (beaten). If Mani had continued in Palghat, he would also have only been "beating" the instrument.

Subbier decided that he should take his son to Vaidyanatha Iyer of Tanjore to initiate him into the mysteries of mridangam. The Tanjore style is studded with recitation niceties and exhaustive grammar for solo accompaniment. It was in the evening when Subbier reached Vaidyanatha Iyer’s house and there was nothing fancy that he could offer to Subbier and Mani. In an interview, Mani Iyer said with pride that he relished the pazhiathu (cold rice with butter milk) that his guru gave and he felt that with it he was almost inheriting the art form.

Those were days of Gurukula and Vaidyanatha Iyer spared no pains to initiate Mani Iyer into the intricacies of the art. Before he was nine, Mani Iyer had mastered the art, revealing his genius. His fame spread and he started accompanying great masters with aplomb. Chembai Vaidyanatha Bagavathar took him under his care and trained him on the concert pattern.

At Conjeevaram, there was Naina Pillai, the devil of a singer. Surrounded by a plethora of percussionists, he used to revel in rhythmic intricacies consigning aesthetics and musicality to the limbo. In those days, concerts consisted of barely a few songs and the emphasis was on swaraprastharam. The pallavi as the centre piece was a prolonged affair testing the wits of maestros like Govindasamy Pillai (violin), Dakshinamoorthy Pillai (mridangam) and Manpoondiya Pillai (Kanjira). the virus of casteism had already permeated the concert platform.

Having heard about the child prodigy, Mani Iyer, the Conjeevaram gang wanted to put him on the mat. Chembai, sure of his ward’s capacity, agreed unhesitatingly. the pallavi, on that evening, was an intricate one and the other accompanists had already rehearsed it and teamed up. For them, it was a stage managed affair. after a few songs it was time for the piece de resistance. Mani Iyer sat stoically, unruffled. The first line was sung but Iyer kept mum. The others stared at him. "Why don’t you play boy?" asked Naina Pillai, rather contemptuously. "Don’t count the beats beneath your angavasthram (embroidered upper cloth). come into the open," retorted Mani. A startled and baffled Naina could not but yield. The audience marvelled at Mani’s guts. Once he was in grip with the time cycle, it was child’s play for him. Both during the accompaniment and ensuing percussion ensemble, he wove patterns of breezy rhythmic variations that swept the other artistes and the audience off their feet.

Since then, Mani Iyer has never looked back. It was a succession of successes. the mridangam player then was merely an accompanist. Imagine, it was incumbent on him to pay a courtesy call on the vocalist to get an insight into the technical know-how of the pallavi piece of the evening. It was Iyer who put an end to this obnoxious practice. "Let them display the time cycle precisely. Nothing is beyond the realm of arithmetic."

If today he is the Lord of percussion, this is by merit and merit alone.

the number of disciples Mani Iyer has trained is legion. Today in the south, the mridangists rule the roost. As to the secret of his success, he is never of tired of saying, "One should know what not to play. The mridangam is a complimentary instrument and should never overshadow the main performer. the artist should be a musician himself if he intends to do justice to his profession. Basic rhythmic patterns can be mastered by anyone in a Garaba vasam (nine months). It is in the alignments and realignments one’s mastery revealed."

The attention he lavishes on the maintenance of mridangam is Iyer’s greatest quality. The choru (the black paste on the right wing) he would change after every concert. Never to be caught napping, he would keep in readiness three more as "stepneys". Being a percussion instrument, he would ensure that both the wings concomitantly reciprocate. In fact, others accuse him of overdoing this maintenance exercise. His technician, Farland, an "untouchable" would sit by him on the concert platform and attend to minor repairs and adjustments on the mridangam. The dais almost approximated a miniature workshop. So much so, that when he and Chembai fell out in later years, he cited this as an excuse for avoiding him. He could not reconcile with a barber’s shop on the concert platform, referring to the knife and leather with Farland.

Why they fell out is an interesting story. Chembai was being honoured by the Music Academy at madras. Mani Iyer was approached for accompaniment. without meaning any offense, he said, "Why not engage someone else? He has been singing the same set of songs for more than two decades." a thoroughly honest remark, but couched in the typical Palghat discourteous tone. Chembai when he came to know of this took a vow never to have him as his accompanist. This vow he , he maintained till his death.

Iyer is a stickler for punctuality. Long ago, while accompanying the late Tiger Varadachari, who set no time limit to his concerts (his voice invariably warmed only after two arduous hours , arduous both for him and his listeners), Mani Iyer looked at his watch after exactly three hours, packed up his drums and left the hall paying little respect either to the age or seniority of the singer. Uncouth? Yes. But that is Mani Iyer.

In a normal Carnatic concert, the taniavarthanam is the signal for toilet. Mani Iyer’s taniavarthanam is the only exception. In fact, it is invariably the main attraction at concerts.

for over 40 years, he maintained a vow not to accompany female artistes, however eminent. He would rather accompany a male with a bad voice than a sonorous woman singer. But when his son married D.K.Pattammal’s daughter, Iyer broke his vow and started accompanying Pattammal. Suddenly, he seemed to have discovered greatness in female vocalists. He now accompanies M.L.Vasanthakumari also, with he is now staying at the Rishi Valley School. Better late than never.

" Mani Iyer’s musical genius and mastery of percussion as a fine art is best summed up in the sanskrit saying Na Bhooto na bhavisshyati. Never before was one like him, nor ever hereafter shall there be one like him."

Some years ago, he started prescribing mikeless concerts if he was to accompany, not a wise decision as the mike is now indispensable, perhaps a necessary evil, these days. One can understand an insistence on a sophisticated public address system to ensure tonal purity, but with tuneless musicians extant and large audiences, such concerts place him at an advantage over the main performer. During his American tour, however, he did not object to the mike at some concerts. Inconsistency apparently is a virtue with him. then how could he reconcile broadcasting studios where mike is the main conveyor? May be idiosyncracies are part of genius.

In his personal habits he is simple, austerely clad. Not many know that Iyer is a class vocalist and if he had chosen to be that instead of playing the mridangam then, too, he would have had no peers. His demonstration of pallavi in todi in the Music Academy, Madras some years ago, was outstanding.

When Iyer was offered the Sangeet Natak Akademi award, he refused it as that "mindless and graceless institution" had ignored giants like Palghat Rama Bagavathar and Kallidaikurichi Ramalinga Bagavathar. It needed a spate of telegrams from well wishers and pressure of admirers to make him accept the national honour.

" Many may not know that he is a first-rate vocalist and if he had chosen that profession instead of mridangam

then, too, he would have had no peers. His demonstration of a pallavi in Todi in the Academy many years ago was outstanding."It would be interesting to evaluate the status of mridangam vis-a-vis other percussion instruments. The pakhwaj is nearest to it in construction though its handling leaves much to be desired. The tabla is hardly a patch on the mridangam the legion of Ustads notwithstanding. I am not being parochial but factual. How can the table be a "percussion" instrument with its two wings separated? Its only advantage is its amenability to high pitch on the right(daina) and a lot of maneuverability on the left(bahan) to produce astounding vibrations. But rhythm and its manifestations , as perfected in the Carnatic idiom, have been evolved to such a high degree of sophistication that the tabla is miles behind the mridangam. Even in jugalbandhis, the mridangam player is brainwashed to play on a low key vis-a-vis the tabla, by not indulging in intricacies of rhythmic fractions. Palghat Raghu admitted to me that when he accompanied Ravi Shankar with Alla Rakha in Bombay, he had perforce to suppress his virtuosity for safeguarding Alla Rakha’s prestige which he, of course, did for a sizable ransom. I know he will not admit this in public.

There is an interesting canard about the evolution of the tabla. It was originally all pakhwaj, the next cousin of mridangam. while a pakhwaj Ustad was playing in a royal household, the king, a follower of the tenets of Koran, was so enraged that he cut the pakhwaj into two. The humiliated artiste thought of the ingenious device of playing separately on both the pieces. The two responded and the courtiers admired. They exclaimed, it appears, Tab bhi bola (even then it spoke) which, in course of time, became tabla.

And, yet Shanta Prasad, the Banaraswalla, had the temerity to state in Madras, at one of his concerts, that the tabla was more ancient than the mridangam as it came direct from Lord Shiva’s Udukkai. My brethren, those spineless wonders in Madras, listened to this pontifical pronouncement with awe and wonder. So much for the tabla.

In conclusion, I reverentially bow to the Lord of Percussion, Palghat Mani Iyer, for the yeomen service he has done to the cause of rhythm.

SUBBUDU.