After ridiculing him all his life, the Carnatic music world is celebrating MD Ramanathan

The voice is a profound bass, close to a low growl, the words blurring deep in the throat, the pace almost decelerating. The first impression is surreal, almost like a vinyl playing at the wrong tempo. But as the song unfurls, it opens out a grand canvas, filling in unexpected colours and leaving you deeply moved. Thyagaraja’s Endaro Mahanubhavulu is a much-loved ode to savants, but in MD Ramanathan’s voice, it transforms into an altogether new aural experience.

To use everyday words to describe Ramanathan’s, or MDR’s, music is a hopeless exercise – unless you are a poet with the felicity of KS Satchidanandan. In Ramanthan Padunnu (Ramanthan sings), a poignant work in Malayalam, Satchidanandan compares it to the resonance of a tanpura playing in the cavernous hollow of an elephant’s throat.

“He sang from a place of freedom and pure joy, oblivious to all else around him,” said violinist RK Shriramkumar, who recently set to music some of MDR’s unsung compositions. “It was internalised music, pure svanubhuti, and always in the moment. When most others were picking the medium or fast pace of singing, he was slower than slow in his exposition. Everything he did, from his accent to his intonation and even mannerisms, went into interpreting the emotive content of a composition.”

MDR was likely one of the most unworldly and otherworldly geniuses of the Carnatic world, his music considered an aberration in his lifetime. It was not just his exceptional baritone – once famously dismissed as “patala shruti (voice from the netherworld)” – it was also the chowka kala or the extra slow tempo of singing, which often left words sounding inchoate. He had no time for showmanship, vocal fireworks and tala blitz, choosing instead to delve into the abstract and unstated.

“Music is more about suggestion than anything else,” he said in a rare 1977 videographed interview. “Meaningful pauses have more meaning than the music itself…it is something beyond what is expressed. Perfectly, grammatically good music is almost everywhere but something [could still be] lacking.”

This asceticism cost the maestro dearly: shredded by critics, ignored by organisers and influence peddlers, and ridiculed for his unusual persona, he was consigned to the margins of fame for much of his life. Like other trailblazers, it was not till after his death in 1984 that the immensity of his work was discovered, setting off something close to a cult.

Today, the Carnatic world cannot have enough of MDR – as it celebrated his birth centenary in 2023-’24, and in preceding years, a slew of books, documentaries, research papers, essays, music festivals and lecture demonstrations plumbed the uniqueness of his art. His small base of diehard fans has expanded markedly. And for the young, he has become a beacon for creative courage. Among them is the vocalist Rithvik Raja.

“When I started out I was attracted to his flamboyance but as I grew into my music I realised how precious and valuable his work was,” said Raja, who believes that the depth of MDR’s rare musicality has yet to be fully understood. “He was a milestone in aesthetic values in Carnatic music, a man who held himself to his own standards. If you hear his recordings, he would often chide himself mid-concert: ‘I am not singing well’...’the music is not coming to me’...’the second time I was better’. How many artistes allow themselves to be that vulnerable on stage? For all of us of this generation, he is the yardstick for artistic integrity. He was way ahead of his times, what was considered his weakness was actually the ignorance of his critics and audiences.”

Among the most recent tributes to MDR is Boho Baritone, a two-part documentary whose title is drawn from the singer’s legendary low pitch and its radical effect. Musician and filmmaker Savitha Narsimhan, who conceptualised the film, says the most remarkable thing about MDR is the complete lack of separation between the man and his music.

“In their career trajectory, most professional musicians pick a concert persona, how and what they sing, how they present themselves,” she said. “But he completely aligned his self with his music. On and off stage he was the same. He was not really a performer, he simply sang, doing the best he could.”

Lifetime of neglect

These unorthodox ideas on music also meant sparse audiences, spare concerts, few accolades and an abysmal number of formal recordings of his work. An unassuming and rather naive man without a competitive bone in his body, he is said to have been once asked why there were only two records of him. “They only came for two,” he replied.

Carnatic singer Rama Varma, who has been a diehard MDR admirer since childhood, is underwhelmed by the reparations the music world is making for a lifetime of neglect faced by the legend. “He may be the flavour of the season but he was totally marginalised by the Carnatic establishment – [by] gurus, music critics, sabha secretaries and many music lovers,” he said. “He was a sterling musician, but he was the victim of prejudices about what constitutes the so-called norm.”

Varma, who belongs to the erstwhile Tranvancore royal family, has a moving memory of the first time he heard MDR. All of four or five years old, he was left shaken by a music that he could not even fathom. The family would host an annual Navaratri Mandapam music festival at which MDR was a regular for many years.

“There was minimal amplification at the mandapam but when I first heard him I felt like I was hit by thunder,” said Varma. “It wasn’t a pretty voice but it felt as if a wall of sound impacted my whole body, leaving me immobilised. And as a child, I found his whole presence on the stage fascinating – the hand movements, all of the 6 foot and more of him sitting cross-legged on stage, the arc of his arm propped on a knee framing his impish face as he squinted at TK Murty who was playing the mridangam…the kindness, the mischief. And above all this profound inwardness of that music.”

It was hard to tear your eyes away from MDR on stage – as Varma says, he made for a riveting figure. This is also why he became a study for writers of fiction, biographies and poetry as well as filmmakers. A lumbering presence on stage, his face was constantly mobile with a pronounced squint on a gaunt face, a lush tuft tied back, and pronounced front teeth. Add to that the wild gesticulations and you can see why he is a caricaturist’s delight, including RK Laxman.

Loyal fandom

Though he spent much of his creative life in Chennai, MDR was born into a musically gifted family in Manjappara village in Kerala’s Palakkad district, a fact that partially explains the immense love and ownership for his music among the state’s connoisseurs. His early attempts at music were met with derision for his unusual voice and unkind neighbours would call him manushya drohi (malevolent) for his morning practice sessions, as Boho Baritone narrates. It was heartbreaking but the hostility made him persevere.

The big break came when he was accepted by Kalakshetra in Chennai as a student under the great musicologist and vocalist Tiger Varadachariar. They were a miraculously perfect guru-shishya fit – Varadachariar acquired his prefix because of the gruff roar of his voice, which, like MDR’s, was far from delicate and had tremendous power. Carnatic fables have it that MDR absorbed not just his teacher’s style of singing but also his dramatic mannerisms.

Often described as an acquired taste, MDR’s style did not fill concert halls but he did acquire a core of fiercely loyal fans. Among them is Krishnamurthy, a school teacher from Thripunithura in Kerala. So dedicated is he to the cause of collating, conserving and showcasing any material he can find on his idol that he is popularly known as “MDR” Krishnamurthy. He hosts an annual music fiesta \in MDR’s memory and, for a year now, he has been uploading a piece of MDR music every single day on YouTube. He is now considered the go-to resource for all things MDR.

Krishnamurthy was in middle school in 1962 when he first heard an MDR record being played on All India Radio. Local music organisers told him that audiences were simply not interested in his icon’s voice but that if he was keen to hear him live, he should attend the Navaratri festival in Thiruvananthapuram.

“I decided right then that I would make this possible one day,” he said. “I decided to join the fine arts college in Thiruvananthapuram just so I could hear MDR for five years straight. And then a job in the city allowed me to hear him again. I became his aradhakan (worshipper). I even wrote a book of fiction, Kedharam for DC books, a novella on how I reached my icon.”

A Malayalam word that springs up often in Krishnamurthy’s description of his favourite musician is orrakapurathu (off hand or impulsive). “He was inimitable because his bursts of creativity were sudden. But I never found the courage to walk up to meet him, his mein was so full of gambhiryam (reserve).”

At this distance in time, artistes today are able to look back with greater clarity at his musical thinking – especially his much-reviled voice, and the penchant for slow deliberation and reliance on instinct.

“He asked the question: what can I do with the voice I have been given to comprehensively understand music in a new way. If the voice does not help me, what can I do musically instead?” said Rithvik Raja. “As for the tempo, 99% of musicians today will not be able to sustain it with calmness and understanding. Most importantly, he was so confident that he never banked on his memory of practice or earlier concerts to perform on stage. He had no ‘plan’ when he performed. This was a huge risk and it made him extraordinarily special.”

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