M.S.Subbulakshmi – God’s Own Legacy!

Last week social media was abuzz with a few pictures of actress Vidya Balan in the avatar of M.S. Subbulakshmi, among the greatest musicians this country has produced. The occasion was to commemorate the 108^th birth anniversary of the living legend. Balan looked the part not just with her looks but also with her attire, body language, expressions and overall look and feel. It’s not surprising that the pictures broke the internet.

For a few generations of us from the South of the Vindhyas, MS has been a fellow traveller.  Her Venkatesa Suprabhatam was the 1^st fix on Saturday mornings even before the filter coffee. As kids, if we learnt the rendition of Vishnu Sahasranamam almost flawlessly with the right diction, it is thanks to MS.  Long before we started understanding the complex philosophy of Births and Rebirths, if we realised there was a concept like that, it was from the ‘punarapi jananam, punarapi maranam’ phrase of MS’ rendition of Bhaja Govindam song written by Adi Shankaracharya but taken to the world by MS. I can go on and on. The bottom line is that MS had a huge role to play in instilling the “Bhakti” phenomenon among a section of society in her heyday.

As an ardent follower of Carnatic classical music, MS has personally been an unparalleled icon for me.  To me and I am sure for many others, her renditions stayed as benchmarks for many of the compositions to date. Recently, in the film Rocketry, the makers featured a version of the Venkatesa Suprabhatam. No doubt this version is technically made very well and rendered beautifully. Yet, our benchmark for the best remains MS’s version. Hanuman Chalisa is another example. For those who grew up listening to MS’s version of the Chalisa, any other version pales in comparison.

Is this phenomenon limited to MS’s devotional renderings which one can attribute to her voice laced with bhakti of the surrendering type? Or her flawless Sanskrit diction? Or for that matter her composing and rendering style that gave the works an elevated sense of aura? It would seem so considering the popularity of her devotional renderings.

In my opinion, her sphere of influence went beyond the devotional numbers. In classical Carnatic music, the very popular Ramalinga Adigal’s song in Tamil – Vaanathin meedu mayilaada kanden… in Maand raga became what it is after MS started singing it.  Today in social media, we see so many youngsters singing the song Kurai Ondrum illai… This song written by Rajaji became a very popular “competition number” after MS included it in her album.  For Tamilians, the exposure to Meera Bhajans happened after MS acted and sang in the film Meera back in the year 1945!

Maitreem bajata, a prayer composed in Sanskrit by the then Shankaracharya of Kanchi mutt – Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swamigal was sung in the UN General Assembly by MS in Oct 1966. Here MS became the seer’s messenger to carry the message of peace to the world. Maitreem bajata was immortalised.

As I look back at so many such wonderful compositions that are so popular today, the seeds for their popularity were sown by MS and they became what they are today after she rendered them. There are other singers too that too in the classical and bhakti sphere, who have such iconic numbers to their credit. For example – when we want to hear Kanda Shasti Kavacham, it is the Sulamangalam Sisters’ version that comes to our mind first. Similarly, when we think of “English notes” in Carnatic music, it is always Madurai Mani Iyer’s rendition that is the benchmark. When it is “Dance thillanas”, it is Lalgudi Jayaraman’s thillanas are the go-to. And in the recent past, the iconic Bharathidasan song Thunbam Nergaiyil… has been owned by Sanjay Subramanyan!  Having said that, beyond MS, I cannot think of any other musician who has set so many benchmarks with their renderings that too in different genres.

But beyond her singing, her life has been an inspiration. I keep wondering at the kind of rehearsals and practice she would have done to record those iconic albums like Vishnu Sahasranamam, Ganesha Pancharatnam and others at a time when recording happened in a single track and that too in a single take.

How can a person conduct herself with such grace in public?  I have heard so many eyewitness accounts of the way she always showed great respect to elders in the fraternity. Similarly, the manner in which she always made it a point to encourage kids and youngsters whenever she saw them perform. She had no airs of herself. In my opinion, she is the G.O.A.T among viral sensations. Her renditions went viral organically without the help of influencers who hashtag for a living.

MS’s renditions have been surviving and doing better with every technological advancement in the way we consume music.  During the LP (Long Playing) vinyl records era, HMV – the company that produced most of her iconic albums made a killing in sales of her records. That trend continued with audio cassettes, Audio CDs and music downloads. Now in the Spotify and Amazon music era too, MS’s Suprabhatams, Sahasranamams and Bhajans continue to top the charts in terms of streaming. I understand that she has bequeathed most of the royalty earnings from her iconic albums to charitable causes! That’s a lot of money!

At her peak, MS had such a spell-binding effect on people that it is told apocryphally that MS and her husband could stay in Prime Minister Nehru’s residence in Delhi as a guest whenever they were in Delhi! That’s why I just couldn’t relate to T.M. Krishna’s conjectures on MS as one who didn’t live her own life and that she was a prisoner of circumstances. It was unfortunate that TMK wrote all that at a time when MS was not alive to defend herself and tell her own tales. And therefore to me, they are at best conjectures.

Kudos to Vidya Balan first for being part of this exercise to re-live M.S. Subbulakshmi’s legacy. Kudos as well to Anu Parthasarathy (daughter of noted Tamil playwright Vietnam Veedu Sundaram), a costume designer who has been working in many Indian films to take up this project that has been in the works of 8 years, it seems.  It is not known if a biopic on MS with Vidya Balan in the lead is in the works. I am sure when it happens, it will see the kind of reception that Ponniyin Selvan – 1 got in the South of India in the theatres and I for one would look forward to it.

M.S. Subbulakshmi left us almost 20 years ago. Or did she?

To me, Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi aka MS is one of God’s Own Legacy!