-Ranjani Govind

With so many Carnatic classical male duets performing today, would you believe that Karnataka too had trailblazers Sathavalli Nanjundaiah & GL Ganesh Shastri performing together in the 1940s itself? The two were long-familiar who carried on the lineage of saint poet Tyagaraja shishya parampara through their guru Sattur Krishna Iyengar. Those were the days when Sattur Krishna Iyengar was an acclaimed guru who had stars as Calcutta Krishnamurthy and Dr. S. Ramanathan amongst his disciples.

Today, as Sathavalli Nanjundaiah’s Centenary is being reminisced, the youngest son of Sathavalli Nanjundaiah Dr. N. Raghu and his musician and corporate employee – niece / nephews –  Lakshmi Balasubramanya, Bharadwaj 

R.Sathavalli and  Pratibha Ramaswamy of Abhijnaa Arts Foundation; Vinay Sharva and Vijaya Raghava of Krishna Kala Kendra; Karthik Sathavalli & Prithvi Parthasarathy of Srujana Centre for Performing Arts – jointly present “Shruti Smriti” – a birth Centenary celebration of Sathavalli Nanjundaiah on January 24, 5pm, Jayarama Seva Mandali in Jayanagar.

The programme graced by Sangeeta Kalaratna vocalist S Shankar as the Chief Guest, will be followed by a violin-duet at 5pm, by the young Anika Shastry & Shivani Shastry, students of ace-violinist R. Ganesh, accompanied by BS Samarth on Mridanga & Skanda Manjunath on Ghata; followed by a classical vocal recital by Sangeeta Kalaratna MS Sheela, an acclaimed performer and senior student of RK Srikantan at 6pm – accompanied by Apeksha Appala on vocals, Mattur Srinidhi on Violin, Anirudh Bhat on Mridanga and BS Raghunandan on Ghata.

Remembering a legend

Says Dr. N. Raghu, Deputy Director (Content Operations) AIR & Doordarshan, South Zone, “My father – an employee of the State Bank of Mysore who had served in Kollegala, Bagarapet, Arisikere and Bengaluru – was a multi-faceted music artiste. He was a veena player who was trained under his maternal uncle Lakshminarayana and was an innate Harmonium player who won people’s appreciation for his spontaneous musicality on stage. His passion made him metamorphose into being an enterprising organizer too, with him becoming the second life member of one of the oldest, Malleswaram Sangeeta Sabha and was an integral part of the forming of Wilson Garden Rama Mandira. Nanjundaiah belonged to an era when everything seemed naive and over-simplified with only people’s involvement in music being primordial to one’s surviving instincts. Fame was hardly being factored in for assessing one’s success then. Although getting recognition wasn’t easy during those times, it was just saadhane that took them across to several platforms across India. When he earned Rs. 75 from his bank, he used to pay Rs. 25 out of it for musical learning, highlighting the persona in him,  steeped in Nadopaasana!” 

Sathavalli Nanjundaiah’s beautiful renderings – even in some of his teaching sessions with his two daughters that are available today – are something of a treasure now, says Raghu, feeling sorry that recording several decades ago, weren’t easy sessions, but had to be dependant on tape recorders that have gone feeble over time. AIR or Akashavani came in much after Nanjundaiah’s prime years of 1940’s and early 1950’s performances.

Old school purity Vs New rendering

How much of the old-school purity and musical samskaara makes up for valuable lessons today? What was the stylistic renditions then? “Traditional phrases that were taught by guru Sattur Krishna Iyengar was Nanjundaiah and Ganesh Shastri’s  mainstay. Exactitude of swara phrases that traced the raga-bhava formed the sangatis. This precision was adhered in his swara-prasthara too as the journey of the raga, the schooling believed, had to follow through paths that meticulously defined the characteristics of the raga-swara-course. No unnecessary delineations were encouraged and no frills whatsoever got any applauding. My father never brought in too much math too; multifarious sangatis, and clarity in shruti and lyrics made up the spirit of classicism then,” Raghu says, describing the culture of interpretations then, the paathantara (schooling) that Nanjundaiah and his contemporaries passionately held.      

Those were times when Alathur Brothers were duet-models. Nanjundaiah’s contemporary was S. Ramanathan, a student of Sattur Krishna Iyengar, both known to have had Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer’s influence too. “My father has never spoken to me about devaranama or any tail-enders that are  integral to programming today. What made cutcheris refreshing were inclusions of Tyagaraja’s Divya Nama Sankeertanams, believed Nanjundaiah, amidst the serious renderings of Bhairavi, Mukhari, Todi, Kharaharapriya amongst others. And much in contrast to the contemporary renderings, my father’s era neither had a deluge of birkhas nor a spate of fanciful gamakas in their alapane or sangati, but were more concerned about their voice-culture that was taken care through their diet,” recalls Raghu, from what he had observed Nanjundaiah as a young boy who lost his 59-year-old father in 1985.   

Shatavalli Nanjundaiah, (born 1925) and brought up in Bengaluru at the Nagarathpet area, got a  further boost to his musical persona with musician neighbours in the area as morsing L. Bheemachar, mridangists as ML Veerabhadraiah, Puttachar and Ramachar and the veteran violinist Ratnagiri Subba Shastry.

And Nanjundaiah’s family pre-fix  Sathavalli to his name? “Our Telugu Mulakanadu Vaidiki lineage traces people of Sathavalli (Sathupalli) near Khammam in present day Telangana, that was known for its poetic community that served the Maharajas, it is believed. Later during the Shatavahana Kingdom centuries ago, migration of people happened to Bangalore, Kolar and Chikkaballapura, when our family had moved to Bengaluru,” says Raghu, now carrying forward his father;’s musical legacy with light music compositions and penning lyrics, apart from his role in AIR and Doordarshan where he is marinated in melody too.

(Centenary Celebrations of Sathavalli Nanjundaiah; January 24, 5pm, Shree Jayarama Seva Mandali, Jayanagar 8th Block; Entry free )