Why generations of Carnatic artistes see RK Shriramkumar’s violin as an indispensable ally on stage

Getting RK Shriramkumar to talk about his creative feats is like pulling teeth. With a bashful grin, the Carnatic violinist protests that it is nothing really. The credit roll of those to whom he attributes his brilliance is long – the great gurus, savant composers, inspired mentors, generous collaborators and an impressive family legacy. The only one not on it is Shriramkumar himself.

“I have learnt under the greatest of teachers and played for the greatest of musicians and I learnt from each one of them,” is all he will say. But ask his admirers, and there are legions of them especially among the young, and they will gladly list his considerable and varied triumphs.

Shriramkumar is currently one of the most sought-after Carnatic violin accompanists: for many artistes, he is a supportive ally who they must have by their side on the stage. His violin sings, almost like a second voice on the stage. He is a passionate scholar who has thought through the minutiae of his art and whose painstakingly constructed lecture demonstrations are a huge draw. His warm home in T Nagar in Chennai is so overrun with aspiring vocalists and violinists seeking his teaching that there are jokes about it.

And yet he remains one of the most affable, unaffected and likeable musicians on the Carnatic scene today. “I call it sharing, not teaching,” he corrects you when you talk about his mentorship of younger artistes such as Ramakrishna Murthy, Amritha Murali and Aishwarya Vidya Raghunath.

Aside from everything else, Shriramkumar is a refined lyricist-composer who has become Carnatic world’s favourite tunesmith – he sets to music vintage, unsung lyrics left orphaned by the passing of their composers. Just a month ago, he presented the unsung and unrecorded compositions of the great vocalist MD Ramanathan in Chennai in the voice of his leading student, Amritha Murali.

One of the most fascinating aspects of his dramatic career is that it has spanned multiple generations of musicians – from the masters of the past to the millennials and, in between, the wizards thrown up by the pulsating youth movement in Carnatic music of the late 1980s, of which he himself was a part.

“Shriram’s ability to bring together what he has imbibed through the oral tradition with his own serious engagement and critical thinking sets him apart from most other musicians,” said vocalist and long-time collaborator TM Krishna. “He does struggle with the contradictions that emerge from this exercise, but that has not stopped him from continuing his investigations.”

Shriramkumar and Krishna have been musical allies for over three decades, with mridangist Arun Prakash the other member of the triumvirate. In 1988, when Krishna made his debut at the Music Academy in Chennai as a 12-year-old prodigy, the violinist, then aged 22, was on stage with him.

There is an air of staunch traditionalism around him, both in his art and his personal life, but this can be deceptive, Krishna adds, for it coexists with a strong streak of individualism.

“Shriram in his personal life is a conservative person and, due to this, audiences and friends view him as a carrier of the old, a re-interpreter of the past, placing him in that box for their convenience,” he said. “But they do not realise that Shriram is creating a present and shaping a future that comes out of his own thoughts, points of view and the ability to question.”

Humility and devotion

In Bengaluru, Shriramkumar is waiting to leave for a concert starring the veteran vocalist Rama Ravi. When he plays with her, he is in complete sync with her artistry, embellishing and showcasing it, but his own musicality is no less riveting. He sits in rapt attention, almost leaning into the musician he accompanies to get every nuance right. And this engagement does not alter, whether it is Ravi or a much younger Vignesh Ishwar.

He has played for every colossus in the field – MS Subbulakshmi, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, DK Pattammal, DK Jayaraman, T Brinda, T Muktha, KV Narayanaswamy and M Balamuralikrishna – but is also on stage with several bright youngsters, several of them his own students. Ego does not constrain him, he says.

“When it comes to accompanying an artist, I have to respond to their instincts first,” he said. “It has to be done with humility and shraddha (devotion) and it makes no difference whether they are old or young. I surrender any baggage I carry on the stage.”

In an interview to The Indian Express, mridangist Arun Prakash points out that when he and Shriramkumar accompany an artiste, their sole intent is to highlight the composer and the singer. In a sense, he says in a lighter vein, their accompaniment has only one refrain all through the concert: “They are singing well, they are singing well, they are singing well…”

“I have not seen anyone so invested in the cause of music,” said vocalist and student Aishwarya Vidya Raghunath. “When he teaches a composition, he re-lives the music phrase every single time he sings it. He sees a new dimension, a new thought process behind the composer’s intent and then shares it with a childlike wonder. And he allows every student to be themselves but is particular about their alignment with the musical values of the great composers and musicians of the past. Every class with him is a revelation – be it the music, be it history, be it a little anecdote. This wonderment and joy is contagious and I’m always inspired to try and push myself a little more.”

It was Shriramkumar’s grandfather, the revered violinist RK Venkatarama Shastry, who drew him into music and from whom he first learnt that the violin had to be vocal, as close an approximation of the human voice as possible. Thereafter, he went on to learn the violin under VV Subrahmanyam.

“Starting with my thatha (grandfather), I was always taught to parallelly sing and play a composition,” he recalled. “The violin had to sing, not sound like a separate instrument. My grandfather was orthodox, he would lay down for us the meanings and structures of compositions and we had to know not just the sangatis (abstract phrases) but the sahitya (literature) and their roots in the scriptures as well. The bhava (emotion) was paramount for him.”

In a fond tribute to his grandfather, Shriramkumar writes of being walked home from school by him with theoretical lessons along the way, rushed through a snack and then being sat down for a class. To drive home the importance of vocal music, he was later sent for vocal lessons under the renowned vocalist and brother of the great DK Pattammal, DK Jayaraman.

He debuted at age 15 and went on to be the beloved of the old masters.

“All the great artistes I have played for, from MS amma to Semmangudi mama, had a huge corpus of compositions with them and I gathered them all along the way,” he said of his massive treasure chest of compositions.

Of Subbulakshmi, he recalls the wealth of songs she carried with her. “She inspired me to try every genre because look at what she mastered, including songs in Bangla,” he said. “She taught me to give every language the respect and space it deserves, the pronunciation, intonation, its singular charm.”

For a man who specialises in an instrument, Shriramkumar’s universe is remarkably focused on words, meanings and lyrics and the underlying music in them. He has a large body of compositions favoured by singers that are known for their simplicity and completeness. Although, as vocalist N Vijay Siva points out in a tribute in the music journal Sruti, you will never hear him talk about them or promote them.

“Shriram is a tunesmith and composer who largely follows the old school approach in terms of melodic approach and structuring,” said Krishna. “Yet, keeping that basic framework in place, he is able to surprise us with stunning detours that find ways of coming back to the acquainted. Great art is always a play between the known and the unknown and Shriram is a master of this aesthetic game.”

Pushing boundaries

The project to breathe life into the unsung compositions of MD Ramanathan came from his son, Balaji Ramanathan. The songs, about half a dozen of them and presented over an hour, had specified ragas and talas but no notation. “When we had to decide on a tunesmith we had only one choice – Shriramkumar,” said Carnatic musician Savitha Narasimhan, who collaborated on the project and heads the Museum of Performing Arts in Chennai. “He knew MDR’s music and is known for being able to get into the creative spirit of another musician. He is himself a stickler for grammar and tradition, but he could compose as MDR would, as a freethinking maverick.”

As Krishna says, the violinist is known to spring a surprise every once in a while and defy cliches about himself. Shriramkumar composed Poromboke for Krishna, a part of the campaign to reclaim the place given to community commons like water bodies and pastures. The song pushed the boundaries of what classical music can be about, if it can have a contemporary face and what language it can be sung in.

“Shriram will not acknowledge his individualism because in the Indian tradition the ‘person’ has to always remain subservient to the revered collective past,” said Krishna, who points out that in the 30 years of their musical and personal journeys, they have grown together as individuals and musicians.

“We have discussed and argued our way through everything under the sun,” said Krishna. “We are very different people and many wonder how we have remained the best of friends for such a long time. I guess the reason is simple: we are honest with each other and trust in one another enough to know what the other is thinking without having to explain ourselves. Our musical orientation, thought process and movement go together. Hence, even though I do take many more liberties than him, he can see it coming from a mile away.”

Malini Nair is a culture writer and senior editor based in New Delhi. She can be reached at writermalini@gmail.com.