There can be no other MS

The easy and fluent manner in which MS traversed the lower and upper octaves of the musical scale amazed people.

It was a day I will always remember - that afternoon in 1974 when the great singer MS Subbulakshmi sat beside me on the floor of her Chennai home and served me on a banana leaf the south Indian delicacy boli she said she had prepared for young visitors.

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I had gone to her that early afternoon three decades ago to get her reaction to the announcement in Manila that she had won the Ramon Magsaysay award for her contributions as a singer.

It was an assignment I volunteered to do even though as southern regional chief of UNI news agency I could have deputed any of the dozen staff journalists at my disposal for the coverage. When I reached her residence I was directed to first meet her husband T Sadasivam in the adjacent building that functioned as the office of the Kalki magazine. When I told Sadasivam about the purpose of my visit, he readily took upon himself the task of narrating to me how MS reacted on receiving the news of the award.

I was surprised at this and politely told him that I would like to interact with her directly not only for the immediate purpose of getting her reaction for publication in the media but also to discuss with the great musical genius some issues that had been troubling me relating to rendering of compositions under the two systems of Indian classical music, Hindustani and Carnatic.

I explained to him that I belonged to a family of musicians with a great tradition as my elder sister Parvathi had been taught music by none other than Manjapra Anantharama Bhagavathar, the aasthaana vainika (court veena player) at the Travancore maharaja's palace.