Voice of the Vina: Todi Alapana and Tanam (Ep. 1)
- mathurigathevapala
- Mar 21
- 3 min read
This series begins from a very simple place. It has no particular format. My only intention is to document and preserve my guru’s voice on the vina, as I have been fortunate to hear it.
I am a student of Karaikudi S. Subramanian Sir. Over the years, what has moved me most is the purity of sound he draws from the instrument. Sir's engagement with the instrument has always been driven by a search for the voice of the vina. What I hear in that search is a character and depth that are native to the instrument - a sound that is not accessible anywhere else.
Music, to me, is inseparable from the person who makes it. It is a window into their inner world. I hear my guru’s personality most clearly in his tanam. For a long time, I wondered why that is. I feel I have now come closer to an answer.
It is a known fact that tanam is born of the vina. The tanam we hear today on the vina, however, is very different from what it was a century ago. I find that Sir's tanam is a preservation of its original personality - its grounding in the instrument - without any sense of resistance or reaction to current stylistic trends. It is uncontrived and simply an extension of who he is. He and the vina exist in a kind of osmosis. This is reflected in every aspect of his life: his performance, his teaching, the way he listens and his outlook on life. Everything feels informed, refined and clarified by his relationship with the vina.
To me, he is the vina.
And that is why, when he plays, I find myself in the presence of a unified being. Each time he touches a raga, a certain meditative quality comes alive - one that I don't encounter elsewhere. Perhaps it is because I know him personally, and have glimpsed, in some small way, how he sits with the music. I feel privileged to experience this from such close proximity, and I realise that many may never have the opportunity to sit in that space and listen to this sound in person. In this spirit, I have asked Sir if I may document his tanam expositions of various ragas - in his own time, whenever he feels he can enter that space. This series is, in some small way, an attempt to share that experience.
The first video in this series is an excerpt of Todi alapana and tanam from Sir's concert at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin in 2022. My mind often goes back to this particular day. After the concert, an Irish woman came up to us in tears, barely able to get any words out. She sobbed as she told us that she didn't even know why she was crying, because she had not been sad at all. I don't wish to assign any meaning to her reaction. But that moment stayed with me, because it exemplified something we all already know - that music is a powerful means of connection. It allows us to meet and respond to one another without any shared ground other than the sound that brings us together in that moment. In some way, it also reflected something I often feel when I listen to Sir - a kind of cleansing that I didn't even know I needed.
The way I see it, the vina in his hands is an extension of his inner voice. More often than not, I connect with his soul most vividly when he is speaking through the vina rather than through words. I hope to preserve and share that voice through this series, so that it may continue to be heard by those who seek it.
With love,
Comments