There’s a joy to Umayalapuram K. Sivaraman’s persona. There is rarely a moment when you see the beaming radiance on the mridangam maestro’s demeanour fade. This has to be solely attributed to his life’s greatest passion, the mridangam. In every sabha that one has listened to him, Umayalapuram Sivaraman plays with equal enthusiasm, speaks about his art with great pride and confidence, and is determined to reach out to everyone in the auditorium. Overtones -- a short film made on this legend by the acclaimed filmmaker Rajeev Menon -- thoroughly captures the energy and enthusiasm for his art, undiminished even at the age of 80.
Umayalapuram Sivaraman is among the few connections that we have with the world of Carnatic percussion: a past that is replete with thavil and mridangam vidwans, the rich, dynamic tradition, and the free exchange of ideas which not only shaped great artistes, but also established the two major schools of mridangam. These are stories and processes that began almost 200 years ago, but the people who continue to carry the mantle of this great tradition are maestros like UKS.
Menon’s film curiously begins on a very general note – Carnatic music, its popularity, footages from concerts of renowned musicians T.M. Krishna and Bombay Jayashri, surprisingly even a quote from Nobel laureate Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, Fabrizio Cassol, a jazz saxophonist who has collaborated with UKS etc. Hence, the entry of UKS or introduction to the mridangam tradition in the film, happens in a rather roundabout way. The most memorable part of the film is UKS himself – unpretentious and candid; he speaks about the journey of his life.
UKS’s father was an enlightened man, a great connoisseur of music. He saw that his child, who was barely five-years-old, was constantly engaged with rhythms and recognized his inherent talent in percussion. Guru Vaidyanath Iyer said the boy was too young to be trained under him. He finally sent his son to Arupathi Natesa Iyer, an extraordinary vidwan and teacher. While UKS was getting trained formally and eventually went on to learn from the unparalleled Palghat Mani Iyer, one recognizes from what the maestro says in the film that his father was perhaps the most significant figure in his life. UKS remembers his father talking to him about the mridangam vidwan Azhaginambiya Pillai whose playing would move him to tears. “Look at the tones his mridangam produces, it is so similar to singing itself,” he recalls his father saying and even demonstrates it. The other very important memory that UKS shares about his father, from where the film gets its name, is how his father put him to tune the tambura for six months. The idea of shruti shuddam not only came from there, but his father also exposed him to the most nuanced idea of music – “you maybe rendering the note shadja, but it is producing the effect of rishabha. A good musician always hears these overtones.”
While the film doesn’t actually delve into the tradition of percussion or how it has evolved with each of its practitioners, it manages to capture quite a few key ideas of the art form from what UKS himself says.
The other most poignant aspect of the film is when UKS speaks about Palghat K.V. Narayana Swamy’s remarkable rendition of Krishna Nee Begane Baro. “In his improvisations, he was actually bringing alive Krishna’s pranks….” At that point, as an accompanist, “I wanted to free him from the clutches of rhythm,” so that he could freely float in the world of emotion and melody.
The film keeps gathering strength from such insightful remarks that come in the most unaffected manner. Rajiv Menon has also introduced the much talked about caste equation and gender bias in Carnatic music. While the doors of UKS’s home is open to students from all religions, he has several young women also learning from him. “I never played with women. Somehow it didn’t happen. Maybe there was no time for it,” he says rather mysteriously. The film captures UKS as an eternal student, as someone constantly trying to learn and expand his repertoire. As he himself says: “I have killer spirit.” However, the most curious absence from the film is living legends like T.K. Murthy and Trichy Sankaran, but it thankfully includes S. Kalidas.
Rajiv Menon’s film is a good entry point to the life and times of the legend. It generates a lot of interest in the art form and its hoary tradition. The film also subtly captures the making of a legend.
