A perfect blend of confidence and humility

Amid the overwhelming gloom at his passing were a few murmurs that Mandolin Srinivas had accomplished so much in his brief sojourn on earth that it should not matter that he was snatched away in his prime. I could not disagree more.

However, at 45, he had a good 10 or more years of glorious creativity ahead of him. His music was poised for a greatness beyond what we sampled of it in the last three decades. He was on the cusp of a more profound, nuanced and deeper phase. There had been, in recent years, signs in the way he approached ragas, the delectably new interpretations he was tending to make of them.

In fact, during an interview in 2008, I had shared my intuition about the future trajectory of his music, but in his characteristically humble manner, he deflected any hinting at his greatness past, present or future. I suggested to him that it was perhaps time to play music closest to his heart to select audiences in chamber concert ambiences. He told me he loved large audiences, he wanted to continue to reach out to the greatest numbers. “Why don’t you enjoy my music as it is, without assigning deeper meanings to it?” he seemed ask.

Srinivas was a unique amalgam of modernism, a rustic brand of traditionalism and unadulterated genius. He came from a village, taught himself to play a mandolin that belonged to his father’s light music band and learnt Carnatic music from a vocalist in his native village of Palakol in Andhra Pradesh. He plunged into classical music and achieved spectacular speed and variations, exploiting to the hilt a tiny instrument that no Carnatic musician before him had ventured to play.

He was 13 when I first interacted with him. He floored thousands of diehard Mylapore mamas and mamis on their own home turf, concert after concert, with his spectacular raga essays and swara fusillades. He was tiny, shy, tongue-tied, knew very little Tamil and less English. He was respectful, even reverential. Yet, he was completely comfortable in his skin. Here was a boy completely free from self doubt and bereft of airs.

Thirty two years and many conquests in India and abroad later, with his ever increasing raga and composition repertoire, after scores of collaborative efforts that left his partners wonderstruck by his virtuosity, Srinivas retained the same simple, shy ways and humility unmarred by his supreme confidence in his art.

His was not music for those of us who like it slow and soulful. It was fast, dazzling, breathtaking, awe-inspiring, with rarely a long stretch of quietude. Yet, it had soul. It was music that effortlessly bridged south and north, east and west. He was an outstanding ambassador of Carnatic music. There will never be another like him.