Tranquil on stage but private life lacked harmony

To the world, he was a brilliant musician and a charming, soft-spoken individual with a charismatic personality. But in his private life, Mandolin U Shrinivas suffered many setbacks.
The child prodigy, whose name was synonymous with the instrument he loved, won the hearts of people across the world. Close friends and associates have fond memories of the approachable, curly-haired maestro who had a smile for everyone.But only a few were privy to his pain.
According to close friends, Shrinivas, a great devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, became very withdrawn and depressed after the death of his spiritual guru in 2011. His marriage also came to a bitter end in 2012, when the Supreme Court granted him a divorce from his wife U Shree on grounds that he had been treated cruelly by her.
Shrinivas married Sree, a veena player, on November 19, 1994, and the couple had a son. But there were discordant notes in the marriage and they separated. He received a Padma Shri in 1998, the same year that he filed for a divorce. His reason was mental cruelty, caused by her dislike of his sangeet sadhana and lack of respect for the guru-shishya tradition he shared with his father. Though the court granted him a divorce in 2012, it also directed him to pay Rs50 lakh in permanent alimony to his wife, and their son, who lives with the mother.
Shrinivas’ health began deteriorating a little over two weeks ago. He was admitted to Apollo Hospitals in a critical condition with end-stage liver fail-ure, viral bilateral pneumonia and kidney failure. After initial stabilisation with antibiotics and dialysis, an emergency liver transplant was consid-ered, even though it was a high-risk procedure in view of his severe multi-organ failure. He was listed as a supra-urgent candidate on the Tamil Nadu Organ Registry and was allocated a liver. “After initial improvement for five days, he developed secondary lung in-fection leading to shock and multi-or-gan failure. Despite maximal support his condition did not improve,” said a doctor. The maestro breathed his last on the morning of September 19.
(With inputs from Janani Sampath)