Pandits and ustads have acknowledged the musical brilliance of Palghat Mani Iyer - a wizard with the mridangam.

M. Sundaresan profiles the genius on his tenth death anniversary.

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Among the galaxy of musicians of this century, Palghat Mani Iyer was the most outstanding in his chosen art of playing the mridangam. He held a unique concert record with an average of hundred or even more performances a year. this figure may not be an exaggeration if one were to compile the list of programmes given in public concerts, music festivals, recordings and radio programmes all around the country. and sometimes he would give as many as two recitals in a day.

He was known to be a true savant of unalloyed Carnatic music. He could not bear to make any compromises in tradition or style. Of the 70 years of his life, he remained an unrivalled master of the mridangam for over 60 years !

Palghat Mani acquired success in the domain of musicians due to his perspicacity and ease with which he handled the instrument. He was ahead in hisart only because of assiduous practice. While veteran musicians found in him a genius who could enliven their concerts by his accompaniment, noted scientists like Sir C.V.Raman and Dr. Homi J Bhabha observed a sort of ‘light’ and ‘vibration of sound’ both of which produced waves in his rhythmic pattern. there was no one in the south, in fact, perhaps in the country as well, who did not know his name and were not enthralled by his art.

the alphabets of the mridangam are - tha, thi, dhom, num. These are set to seven talas. Each tala has five tempos, called jatis. There are several permutations and combinations and even arithmatic calculations involved in presenting these talas. It was mridangam vidwan Tanjore Sri Vaidyanatha Iyer who formerly gave diginity to this art. He evolved a pattern for presenting more than 35 talas with varying equations and combinations. Later, this system in music was practiced under the banner of what was known as the tanjore Bani School.

It was tanjore Sri Vaidyanatha Iyer who spotted in the young Palghat Mani, a quick grasp of presenting these combinations in music and took him under his tutelage. Palghat Mani learnt as his chosen chela the technique and intricacies of presenting the mridangam in a lucid and dexterous style. Palghat Mani was a disciplined pupil who, between concert dates even if it was only for a few hours’ stay, would rush to Tanjore. His guru would enthusiastically teach him and both of them would end up playing a jugalbandi for hours. after a few years, Palghat Mani not only merited the affection of his guru but also made him feel proud. This is claimed by many senior musicians too.

Palghat Mani began as a child prodigy. His father was himself a talented musician. Palghat Mani first learnt the mridangam from Sathapuram subbiar. His grasp was phenomenal. The great Sangeet vidwan, Chembai Vaidyanatha Bagavathar, observed rare and unusual talent in the boy and encouraged him to accompany him to his concerts on the mridangam. this exposure and his own disciplined mind helped mould his future career as a brilliant performing artiste. By the time he was 28, he had won a lot of accolades from all over the country. He was made the ‘Samasthana vidwan’ of the Travancore Royal Palace, an honour reserved only for senior stalwarts. He was also made the ‘Asthana vidwan’ of Tirupathi Devasthanam. the Madras Music Academy honoured itself by electing him as its president for the vidwat Sadas and conferred the title of ‘Sangeeta Kalanidhi’ in 1966 - the only mridangam virtuoso to hold this honour. the Tamil Isai Sangam in Madras conferred the title ‘Isai Perarignar’ in 1968 and the national award, the ‘Padma Bhushan’, was conferred on Palghat Mani Iyer in 1971.

Inspite of fame and recognition, Palghat Mani’s calm exterior would never reveal his mind, mood or thought. When a scribe asked him why he was so modest, he replied that even when he was young, he could not tolerate it when his art was not given due respect during concerts which were noisy, loud and far from having a classical bend of mind. to him a genuine rasika was a true patron.

Even the Nobel-Laureate physicist sir C.V.Raman made scientific discoveries through Palghat Mani’s music. He specially invited Palghat Mani to the Raman Institute of Science, Bangalore, and conducted a research study while the maestro played the mridangam. The experiment was conducted in a specially constructed, acoustically perfect, camera-fitted laboratory. Raman studied the waves generated on the surface of the water kept in a bowl while the mridangam was played. this led the physicist to conclude that the unique feature of the mridangam was the harmonics that were produced while playing.

In Palghat Mani’s concerts, there would be pin drop silence establishing an excellent artiste-audience rapport, almost from the minute the programme began. His music had mesmeric quality. Keeping mum in certain situations during the concert without even touching the instrument, he would give an appearance of extreme detachment. But it was not so. His detailed mind was working out various combinations before he presented the talas. and suddenly he would play the notes with fine masterly strokes making the instrument sing, so to speak.

Inspite of being a legend in his lifetime, he was a simple man. He wore a simple cotton khadi jubba and dhoti. As an artist, he was oblivious to his environment. His principles were fair play and human dignity. He kept himself away from the all India Radio and the Madras Music Academy concerts for a long time inorder to restore the image of the artistes. He started the trend even among senior vocalists and instrumentalists of remaining aloof when the art was disrespected.

Palghat Mani had strong dislike for loudspeakers and amplifiers that blared noisily in music halls and auditoriums. He decided to do away with the microphone and performed without one even during his concerts. The ubiquitous mike, he said, destroyed the delicate nuances in music. He believed in maintaining the purity of notes, developing a clear voice and rendering it clearly without distractions. He strongly disapproved of musicians becoming slaves to the mike.

Palghat Mani hated unnecessary digressions during concerts like announcements of felicitations of any kind. He regarded them as an intrusion to music. An assembly for a music concert was not to hear one’s own voice or adulation, he would say. these intrusions tampered with the quality of presentations by the artistes and also upset the listeners. They would make the organisers underplay and devalue the rank of the musician and attempt to run him down. the concert platform, he maintained, was to maintain a record of the successful performer like a barometer.

Sometimes his silence on the stage was eloquent. It would make plain his distress about those to whom evanescent glamour was more important than values. His presidential address at the Madras Music Academy was forthright in its insistence on the retention of our musical heritage without compromise. His assets were assiduous practice, rocklike determination, care and concern for the instrument, humane outlook, regard for the rasika and an absolutely perfect conscience.

Palghat Mani participated at the Edinburgh Music festival and the Commonwealth Arts festival. By his mastery of the mridangam, the entire audience was captivated. It was a revelation to the West that any one could be so deft and controlled. He also gave a number of concert performances in the US, travelling from coast to coast.

Palghat Mani Iyer, who had great regard for the art and the instrument, encompasses his art in his own words : "If the instrument was not handled for a day, the conscience would tell. If it was for two days, the instrument would tell and if it was for three days, the audience would tell