A SPRING IN MEMORY: THE NCV CONNECTION

NCV, My Father's Sister

Ramachandran

My father, K Sundar Ram, died in 1966 when I was just five. I was listening to the Maths teacher, Leela, whose husband Timothy, owned the White Shop in Tripunithura when the messenger of death appeared and murmured something to her. I was sent out of the Palace Primary School, which was established to teach the children of the Cochin royal family. Tripunithura was the capital of the former Cochin State. My father's death, coupled with my mother's detachment from relationships, snapped our ties entirely with his family. But my mother, V Saradambal, whose father, Venkitaraman, was a Sanskrit scholar with the Zamorin of Calicut, and lived in Mankavu, near the Western palace, used to boast, till her death, that N C Vasanthakokilam was related to my father.

NCV

The question haunted me always: How is Vasanthakokilam related? 

In 1996, from Thiruvananthapuram where I was a Special Correspondent with Malayala Manorama, I took a taxi to Vellangallur, a village four kilometres away from Irinjalakuda, in the Thrissur district. Since I didn't have any contact number or address, I asked people for Kunnathu Madam, the K in my father's name. People said it is close to the temple. The Sreekrishna temple, I suppose. There were two people in the old house on an acre. To the elderly lady, who came out, I explained, who I am, and told her, I  came to see my father's house." You have come like the flowering of Athi"(the laurel tree or the Banyan Fig), she exclaimed. Niceties over, I asked: "what happened to the salagramam?".

They, the woman and her son were shocked. Salagramam is a holy stone, a spherical black-coloured fossil, found in the sacred river, Gandaki. It is an iconic representation of Vishnu. It got engraved in my mind when a close relative of my father, Parasuram, mentioned it after the funeral. You can keep a salagramam only if there is someone to do the daily pujas. Yes, her son was doing it. I didn't ask them about Vasanthakokilam. But now I have found that she was my athai. Father's sister. My father's father, my grandfather was K Subramanian.His brother was Chandrasekhara Iyer. N C Vasanthakokilam, the legendary Carnatic singer and actress, was his daughter(Athi, I feel, has something to do with Athai!).

Nagapattinam Chandrasekhara Vasanthakokilam (1919-1951) was born in Vellangallur,Irinjalakuda, as Kamakshi.The family shifted from there to Nagapattinam. Her father put her under the tutelage of Nagapattinam 'Jalra' Gopala Iyer, an accompanist in harikatha performances. The family moved to Madras in 1936 encouraged by K Subramanyam, film director.

They could not meet him when they arrived since he was in Kolkata, shooting. A family friend, who had studied with Kamakshi under the same guru, came to her rescue. He was an employee at the Egmore station of the then privately owned South Indian Railway. He gave refuge to her and her father in his quarters. He got her to sing in the radio rum by the Madras Corporation. The AIR was not there. She sang in all places and cut discs with the HMV.

Her name was changed to Vasanthakokilam. She won the first prize in vocal music at the Madras Music Academy annual conference, in 1938.It was presided over by Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar and opened by Yuvaraja of Mysore,Narasimharaja Wodeyar.A star was born. Her colleague, who was romantically inclined towards her was married off by his family. They remained friends.

Subramanyam

K (Krishnaswamy) Subramanyam (1904-1971), Father of Padma Subramanyam, the Bharathanatyam exponent was a renowned director in the 30s and 40s. It was in his Pavalakkodi that M K Thyagaraja Bhagavathar debuted. Though the progressive Sevasadanam made him popular, his best-known film was Thyagabhoomi. M S Subbulakshmi was the heroine in Sevasadanam; Papanasam Sivan wrote lyrics and composed music. Subrahmanyam also produced and directed the first Malayalam mythological movie and third talkie, Prahlada(1941). Kumari Lakshmi, daughter of Chidambaram, private secretary to Dewan Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer was Prahlada; T R Mahalingam, the childhood of Prahlada. The 19 songs in the film, written by Kilimanur Madhavan Nair were set to tune by V S Parthasarathy Iyengar. Actress and singer S D Subbulakshmi was Subrahmanyam's second wife; the Padma is from his first wife. Meenatchi.

Alathur Venkatesa Iyer

Vasanthakokilam shared with MS Subbulakshmi a melodious, high-pitched voice with perfect intonation, sruti and emotion. Her rendering of higher octaves was remarkable with effortless ease to bring off brigas.

In a male-dominated world, C Saraswathi Bai, a Madhva brahmin, was the first woman to give a concert in 1908, the first lady among Bhagavatars.

Sir C Sankaran Nair, the first Malayali Congress (AICC) President, was an ardent champion of her. He organized her first performance at Egmore. Following her came Vai Mu Kothainayaki Ammal and DK Pattammal. At this stage, Vasanthakokilam came without a godfather. The Indian Fine Arts Society gave her opportunities. She became a regular at festivals of Tamil Isai Sangam and Nellai Sangeetha Sabha in Tirunelveli. She sang at Tyagaraja archana during 1942-1951. After Independence, she popularised mystic poet Yogi Suddhananda Bharati's songs. She found and taught Andal, the playback singer, music. She was given the title, Madhuragita Vani by Tiger Varadachari in Kumbakonam. She was a worthy member of the triad of Carnatic music, MS, DK and NC.S (Sundaram) Rajam, actor of yesteryears, who has acted in Sachi's Radhakalyanam had heard NCV singing without a mike.

He remembers: "It was a voice with a rich and pleasant timbre, very pliant and malleable. Although she was thin and frail, her voice combined melody with tensile strength. Her voice rang with vibrancy, a reenkara, as she crossed the tara shadja and dwelt on the rishaba. It is my impression that MS Subbulakshmi took NC's music as a model. In the Simhendramadhyamam kriti Unnai allal vere Gati, NC sang several sanchara-s above the panchamam and in the tarasthayi. Listeners were astounded by her rendition of this Kotiswara Iyer composition."

Papanasam Sivan

She would often take up niraval on the phrase, kai mei palan arul daivamey. The song was a great hit. Sulochana Pattabhiraman, singer and musicologist had heard NCV rendering the Bhairavi varnam of Adiyappaiyer, set to aditala at a chamber concert. She remembers: "Among the rasika-s was the inimitable Alathur Venkatesa Iyer. Even he, the uncompromising great gave a nod of approval after the rendering of the Viribhoji varnam. On another occasion, when she presented a concert at the Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam, her delineation of Kambhoji  in the three octaves held the audience captive. Sarasa dala nayana in Khamas, Mayetwamyahi in Tarangini, sundari ninnidarilo in Begada and the piece de resistance, Thanthai Thai Irunthal in Shanmukhapriya were some of the sparkling gems in her vast repertoire".

Ananthalakshmi Sadagopan heard NCV singing for the first time in 1941 at the Sangeetha Samrakshana Sabha concert at Madurai. She had 78 rpm records of NCV. Ananthalakshmi was told by HMV that it held NCV on par with MS.Ananthalakshmi remembered:" She came up entirely on merit. She drew large crowds. She sang with a lot of confidence, especially on her raga alapanas, and swaraprastharam. Her music was of a high order. It was powerful and high pitched".

By the time she entered the film world in 1940, her marriage had failed. He never encouraged her career. He set up a modest restaurant at Tiruvaiyar, by the name, of Coffee Club, and closed it down and went away whenever her concert was there. She acted as Princess Chhaya in the movie, Chandragupta Chanakya, directed by lawyer turned film-maker, C K Sathasivan, known as Sachi.

   Sachi and Gangavathar

He hailed from a family of noted lawyers in Coimbatore and was a cousin of novelist, R K Narayan. He had a brief training in filmmaking in London. He became associate director of noted American Tamil filmmaker, Ellis R Duncan in his historic maiden movie, Sathi Leelavati(1936). He entered Vasanthakokilam's life, became patron, protector and much more.A Sadasivam to M S Subbalakshmi;another to Vasanthakokilam.He promoted her to film singer and actress. She looked stunning as Chhaya. The make-up came from London. She acted in six more movies: Venuganam (1940),
Gangavathar ((1942), Haridas (1944), Valmiki (1946)
Kundalakesi (1946) and Krishna Vijayam(1950). Papanasam Sivan scored music for Valmiki.

Sivan, incidentally, had a Kerala connection.He was born as Ramaiah Polagam village in Thanjavur. After his father's death, in absolute penury, he and his mother shifted to Thiruvananthapuram, the attraction being the free food of Padmanabha Swamy temple. He studied in Sanskrit college, learnt Bhajans from Karamana Neelakanta Sivan and lived in a room in Karamana agraharam. After passing the grammar examination, he went back to Thanjavur and became a regular at Papanasam Siva temple, with bhasma smeared all over: People began to call him Papanasam Sivan, who, later flourished in Mylapore.

G Ramanathan

Haridas, the Vasanthakokilam movie, is the only movie to cross two deepavalis in Indian theatres. Its music director G Ramanathan took Carnatic music to the masses through film songs. He dominated Tamil music in the '50s. All the music lovers would have listened to NCV rendering Yen Pallikondeerayya, in mohanam, written by Arunachalakavi. This song, rendered by Krishnakumar, becomes the soul of the Malayalam movie, Swam, directed by my friend, Shaji N Karun.Her other famous songs are: Thanthai Thai Irundhal,Nitirayil Vandhu Nenjil,Aananda Nadanam aadinal,Aasai Konden Vande,Thithikkum Senthamizhal,Andha Nal Ini Varumo,Varuvano Vanakuyile,Saarasa Dala Nayana...

Gangavathar,was made by Sundaram Sound Studios,Adayar.MGR bought it and made it Satyam Studios. Her song, Kalaivani Arul Purivaai in Gangavathar, in raga Dhanyasi, became very famous. I have seen pundits saying this: she was not photogenic; she didn't have the glamour or charisma MS wielded and, with MS and DK Pattammal reigning supreme and with ML Vasanthakumari becoming a cynosure, NCV was beginning to be outshone. All of it was in the womb of the future. When she died, she was only 32. She could have done more. But, the fact remains that Sachi who took her under his wings had lost his hold in Kollywood. Remember, he directed only one movie about her. To be fair to him, he was with her till her end.

NCV  in Haridas

After Krishnavijayam, NCV was not there for long; she was not there to equal or outlive the adulation MS Subbulakshmi enjoyed. She died on 7 November 1951 at her Gopalapuram residence. She was ailing for two weeks with tuberculosis and was in a private nursing home till November 6. She was just 32. It would have been better to end the story here. But a stray search on the internet threw up several posts by a Graphic designer in the US, Shyama Sachi. She is the granddaughter of a one-time stand-up comedian who worked in the toy industry, the Irish American, Walter Hogue and Shantha Sachi. Sachi's daughter, Shantha, had eloped with him. In one of her posts, she writes about grandfather Sachi:"he loved his 'work' so much that he abandoned his family for a young starlet who was like Judy Garland".The young starlet is, of course, NCV.

Judy Garland

Judy Garland (1922-1969) was an American actress and singer, who is best identified for her role in The Wizard of Oz (1939). She was nominated for the Academy Award twice: for her role in Judgement at Nuremberg and in the remake of A Star is Born. She remains the youngest recipient(at 39) of the Cecil De Mille award for lifetime achievement. In 1997, she was posthumously given the Grammy lifetime achievement award. She struggled in her personal life. She was plagued by financial instability, owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. She married five times, and the first four ended in divorce. She had a long battle with drugs and alcohol and died at the age of 47 in 1969.

NCV fails in comparison when she came to know that death is imminent, and she made a will by which she donated all her earnings to charity. It was a different struggle for NCV. She was not accepted by the orthodox ism in her family.

She was an outcast for two reasons: she ditched her husband for a partnership with another; secondly, she acted in films. She was never discussed with adulation in family circles. So, for me, this is a reinvention and a revisit.NCV died of tuberculosis; my father too surrendered to it. Perhaps, it is in the DNA.

Post Script:
1. Announcement in the Ananda Vikatan about NCV singing at Thanjavur Tyagaraja Aradhana on 17 December 1944:

2. The Hindu dated November 8, 1951, carries a small news item. Captioned “Death of Srimathi N.C. Vasanthakokilam” it states: “The death occurred of Srimathi N.C. Vasanthakokilam, the well-known South Indian musician, last evening at her residence in Gopalapuram. She was ailing for the past two weeks and was in a private nursing home till November 6. She was 32.”

The star had been suffering from tuberculosis and it was only a matter of time before death came a calling. On November 21, there was an even smaller news item. It stated that “at a meeting of the Indian Fine Arts Society held on November 10 under the presidentship of Mr K.S. Ramaswami Sastri, a condolence resolution touching the death of Srimathi N.C. Vasanthakokilam was passed.” And with that, N.C. Vasanthakokilam was history. It was a very quiet farewell to a person who for some time was considered to be a leading Carnatic musician.

Reference:

1. Flight of A Nightingale by Sriram Venkat Krishnan (The Hindu, December 5,2008).
2. Blast From the Past: Gangavathar 1942 by Randor Guy.
3.Sruti magazine,August 15, 2007. 

See my Post,VIOLIN COMES TO CHENNAI