What can one say Palghat Mani Aiyar ? A genius ? A freak ? A phenomenon ? I don’t find a sufficiently expressive word! He was named Ramaswamy during his namakarmam, but the rare gem that he was sparkled right from a tender age, so that, when introduced to the music world as a full fledged mridangam accompanist at the age of ten his name "Mani" seemed the most natural, the most appropriate for him.

Like a rocket he soared to the summit right from the first public exposure and never yielded primacy to anyone else as long as he lived. Building upon the great training from his gurus in Kerala as well as Tanjore and rubbing shoulders with and jousting victoriously in the arena of music with his two immortal senior contemporaries Alaganambi Pillai and Dakshinamoorthy Pillai, sharpening his brain and wits with the grand varieties of drum vocabulary of Kerala, interacting with the orthodox tradition of Karnatic mridangam dialects, his growth to a mammoth stature at a very young age would be something unbelievable and inconceivable to those who have not been his contemporaries. It was he who started the now prevalent trend of mridangam not just keeping the time with tekhas and mohras but actively accompanying the musical phrasings so as to be really a running rhythmic commentary reproducing on drum all the subtleties and rhythmic complexities of the musical compositions.

His solos or tanis became sensational and people who previously took such occasions as opportunities to slink away for a breath of air or a quiet soda or smoke, sat glued to their seats in awe and wonder at the splendour and sparkle of drum phrases chasing each other in great artistic array. the light and shade, the varied accents, the thunderous rumbling alternating with the cooing of pigeons, the soft tinkle of bells succeeded by the stampede of a cavalcade, these and many more pictures came to mind. so much so that Mani Aiyar tanis became interludes to be eagerly looked forward to. More often than not, the enthusiastic and wildly cheering audience would want him to play more than one tani in a concert. One very important aspect of Mani Aiyar’s playing which like all his other techniques set the fashion for succeeding generations of mridangists was the exploitation of the value of silent intervals which coming at pregnant moments created most eloquent effects on the music and the listeners. His sensitivity made many a less sensitive musician more attentive to his own singing or playing. Very understandably he was jarred by the distortion produced by the microphone whose amplification not only deadened the delicate and sensitive aspects of music but also became a convenient cover for local chats and diversions among the audience. This completely destroyed the concentration and rapport which, in a true two-way reciprocal traffic like musical rendering and audition, is crucially vital.

His tabooing of the mike for his own concerts was signal service in the cause of purification of kartnatak music, but nobody can succeed where even he has not, in completely eradicating this monstrous broker who beggars both musician and listener without profit for itself. His example if followed by every musician and Sabha would certainly have cleansed our music as nothing else might have done. even in a huge acoustically far-from-perfect wilderness like the Music Academy Hall. Mani Aiyar playing for D.K.Pattammal on a festival night a few years ago proved that the tiniest sound, the subtlest sangati, the sweetest karvai could be heard perfectly by a fully packed auditorium because the people perforce listened in perfect silence and with rapt attention.

Mani Aiyar was real margadarsi. the handful of disciples trained by him can simultaneously pay their debt to their guru and further the cause of chaste karnatak music if they implicitly follow in the guru’s footsteps and carry out his ideals with devotion. Mere commemoration trusts and meetings, where empty lip service to his greatness is paid by often newly created celebrities, will never serve any useful purpose. Adherence to practice even more than precept is the best way to keep alive tradition and sampradaya for revitalising treasured styles (banis or gharanas) which once lost can never be recaptured.