Balachandar revisited
V.BALASUBRAMANIAN
| MASTERY Incredible visuals and veena recordings of the maestro left the audience pining for more. |
Genius: S. Balachandar.
As part of their Veena Navarathri celebrations, Veena Foundation organised a multimedia presentation of maestro S. Balachandar (SB) at the Narada Gana Sabha Mini Hall on Monday last. S.B.S. Raman, son of the veena genius , was the presenter, and he made it crisp and interesting. Like father like son.
What S. Balachandar was not can be easily listed. The multi faceted personality looked for perfection in anything he did. He was a good chess player and one of his original problems was published in the sports column of this newspaper in 1937, which hailed him as a prodigy. SB was just 10 then. The paper cutting projected on screen was an eye opener for many.
Taken in by SB’s skill on the ganjira, legendary film director V. Shantharam presented him with a tabla and the boy mastered it no time. He travelled to Sri Lanka and Pakistan (where his chess tournaments were also scheduled then) as tabla accompanist to his elder brother, vocalist S. Rajam . During a concert at Karachi, a lady in the audience rushed home midway , brought a sitar which she had bought for her son, and gifted it to SB. He mastered the instrument within a year and started playing Carnatic music concerts on the sitar.
Multi-faceted mastery
In 1941 he decided to switch over to the veena and vowed never to play any other instrument again. But for the veena, with which he was seen in the photographs shown, the young SB with his sharp nose and wavy hair looked more like a Hollywood hero! Even at the age of 13 he began working for All India Radio. Raman recalled with a smile that as Balachandar was a minor then, his father had to go to AIR to sign for his son and receive his monthly salary.
The first audio clipping played was a fast paced swaraprastara for ‘Sarasa Sama Dhana’ (Kannadagowlai - Adi - Tyagaraja). The definition was perfect despite the jet-like speed with which swaras fell in place, throwing challenges to the mridangam and ganjira accompanists. That the crowd was in an exalted state could be gleaned from the constant ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of elation heard in the background.
The audio clipping that followed was the penultimate line of the first charanam of the song ‘Maayamma’ (Syama Sastri) in Aahiri — ‘Karunajudaway Kaatyaayani Kaalika Bhavaani.’ More than 30 variations of the line, each distinctly different from the other, bore testimony to the fertile imagination combined with impeccable swarasthanams.
SB was a genius indeed! The next was an excerpt from a Subhapantuvarali raga alapana he had played at Tiruvaiyaru with the perfection of a funambulist. Practice sessions running to several hours had made him scale dizzy heights.
After an audio clip of ‘Bantureethi’ played rapidly, came the toast of the evening — a 40-minute video clipping from a live concert in which SB played ragas Hamir Kalyani, Behag and Kapi. It was like a simham playing the veena. Spuritams, soft tapping, heavy pulls and deft touches created magic and the result was sheer ecstasy. Many in the crowd were in tears — this writer included. The master’s playing of the raga in the pit (the open space near the yali) where there are no frets was absolutely breathtaking! Traversing the octaves with ease, he showed his firm belief in manodharma.
Then came Suratti as icing on the cake, typically SB. And it ended leaving one yearning for more.
