We tend to imagine from our contemporary perspective celebrities of the past — and it’s obvious there is more to truth than we imagine.
The same is true of a personality like M S Subbulakshmi, who was born in 1916 in an Isai Vellalar family in Madurai. Isai Vellalars were the hereditary practitioners of classical music and dance in Tamil Nadu for several centuries until stigmatisation of the community resulted in the widespread circulation of derogatory terms such as Devadasis to refer to the womenfolk of the community. The denigration of the Devaradiyar (sacred servants) system resulted in the enslavement of women and their subjugation on sexual grounds. Interestingly, the menfolk of the Isai Vellalar community did not suffer any social ostracisation.
Unfortunately, even today, references to doyens from the Isai Vellalar community such as M S Subbulakshmi and Balasaraswati bring up their Devadasi family lineage.
M S Subbulakshmi captured the imagination of the new nation in the making when Meera, directed by the American Ellis R Dungan, was released in 1945. Express archive photo
A vigorous campaign and an Act
Thanks to a vigorous campaign by one of the members of the legislative council of Madras, Muthulakshmi Reddy, along with the support of Periyar and other Dravidian movement leaders and members of the Isai Vellalar community such as Muvalur Ramamirtham Ammal, the system was abolished with the promulgation of the Madras Devadasi (Prevention of Dedication) Act, 1947.
Isai Vellalars lost their hereditary sources of livelihood on account of two major factors: besides the promulgation of the Madras Devadasi (Prevention of Dedication) Act, the appropriation of their hereditary arts by the Brahmins through the institutional support of the Music Academy and sabhas. The struggles and triumphs of Balasaraswati, the last exponent of Sadirattam (the dance of the Devadasis) during the 1940s-1980s are well documented by her son-in-law and a former professor of musicology in the US, Douglas Knight. Bharatanatyam emerged during the first part of last century due to the attempts of Rukmani Arundale and the office bearers of Music Academy such as E Krishna Iyer to make the dance of Devadasis (sadir attam) “respectable”.
It’s with this historical background in mind that we need to imagine/write/read/reflect on someone like M S Subbulakshmi. Her public image in 2024 hovers around contemporary controversies such as the award named after her by Music Academy and the awardee, T M Krishna, who may not receive it because of the Madras High Court judgment which cites the will of M S Subbulakshmi.
The well-known historical facts of a personality like her are straightforward: She was born in Madurai on September 16, 1916, to a well-known Isai Vellalar veena player, Shanmugavadivu, and died in Chennai on December 11, 2004. She married T Sadasivam, a public relations person who was closely associated with the Kalki Krishnamurthy family that published the Kalki magazine She recorded her first album at the age of 10 and gave a public performance at the Music Academy of her bhajan at the age of 13. She was an actor too and worked in five films, including the well-known Meera (1945). She made her film debut with Sevasadan in 1938.
M S Subbulakshmi was an articulate member of the Tamil Isai Movement. Launched by the founder of Annamalai University, Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar in 1941, the movement sought to give Tamil a prominent space in Carnatic music concerts. Express archive photo by VIdyavraja
M S, the rebel
But there are other little-known historical facts of her personality that convey a different image of her. She was a rebel during the 1940s, when she took cudgels against the prevailing practice of singing in Carnatic music concerts in Telugu, Kannada and Sanskrit; she instead sang in Tamil.
M S Subbulakshmi was an articulate member of the Tamil Isai Movement. Launched by the founder of Annamalai University, Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar in 1941, the movement sought to give Tamil a prominent space in Carnatic music concerts. Her passionate involvement with the movement was what invited the infamous five-year ban on her by the Music Academy.
Her sonorous voice was her hallmark. It had a pitch that was unmatched by her contemporaries such as D K Pattammal and M L Vasantakumari, with whom she shared an admirable professional rapport.
M S Subbulakshmi captured the imagination of the new nation in the making when Meera, directed by the American Ellis R Dungan, was released in 1945.
Photographs of her with Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, besides pictures of M Karunanidhi and C N Annadurai listening to her concerts bring alive a personality who had a magical aura to bind leaders, fans and, consequently, a nation that was looking for an “ideal” woman icon. This launched her on the international circuit and the national circuit of concerts. Tamil women started buying her favourite blue vaira oosi Kanchipuram sarees and started draping their jasmine flowers as she did. MS Blue became a new colour to imagine one’s saree in Tamil Nadu. However, during the later decades, as she became the face of Carnatic music, she moved away from Tamil Isai, singing largely Telugu and Sanskrit compositions and bhajans.
Her camaraderie with Balasaraswati is well captured in a popular image of both of them smoking cigarettes (was it a prank?).
She comes out as an independent decision-maker at times. One of these instances was when she went back on her own decision not to sing at any public programme and accepted the invitation of a top official of the Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam to sing the verses of Annamacharya, a 15th century Telugu composer. Her album, Balaji Pancharatnamala, which was released in 1979, ended up changing her musical journey forever.
From a sabha concert singer, she transformed into an ace singer of bhajans. Her voice and music crossed the threshold of the sabhas and wafted through public spaces and domestic spaces. Her renditions of Suprabatham, which is sung to wake up Lord Venkateswara during the early morning hours at the Tirupati Tirumala temple, made her voice a morning ritual every Saturday in the homes of the Vaishnavite families of south India.
Personal letters and a fortress
She is not known for her interviews in the press and I have not come across any major interview by her on vital topics of her life and music. There is a mention of her personal letters (numbering 20) by journalist-author T J S George in the appendix of his book on M S Subbulakshmi (2016). They were addressed to G N Balasubramaniam, a leading Carnatic musician and her counterpart in the film, Sakuntalai (1940), with whom she was evidently in love. But it was Sadasivam who ended up marrying her. It was a marriage that helped her scale great professional heights, but made her a heavily guarded subject. According to T J S George, “the absence of any kind of records about M S Subbulakshmi’s life and the fortress erected around her by her husband, Tyagaraja Sadasivam,” made the research on her “virtually impossible”. He further said: “Sadasivam controlled all access and all information so tightly that nothing was ever known that Sadasivam did not want known.”
Her musical concerts came to an end with the death of her husband in 1997. She passed away after a brief hospitalisation in 2004.
It would be an injustice to imagine her only as a famous Carnatic singer from Tamil Nadu. She, like many celebrities of her kind, defies categorisation and bracketing. She had the right to choose her partner, her way of life and her way of singing and that must be respected. Trying to imagine her from any other perspective, particularly the ideological affiliations of contemporary subjects, is likely to distort her personal history and the spirit of a woman artist who rose from very humble beginnings. Unlike Rukmani Arundale or many of her contemporaries or present-day artists, she was not from privileged backgrounds. Her sacrifices and struggles also require a place in our imagination.
The writer is Professor, Department of Media and Communication, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur
