4/30/2023 0 Comments The last bastion songShe had become one with Nadabrahmam.Īs her very first student, it is with joy and pride that I write about Mukthamma. On her last journey Muktha, clad in a red saree, was radiance itself. She could sing any song without forgetting even a word or a sangati. Even as, one by one, her other faculties faded away, music remained with her. Muktha suffered a fall in 2004 and thereafter was confined to her bed. The death of Viswa, who was very close to her, greatly saddened Muktha as did MS’s passing away two years later. Viswanathan who was younger to Muktha by 12 years died in 2002. Sankaran (son of Lakshmiratnam) followed in 2000, and finally cousin T. Thereafter, starting with Brinda who died in 1996, cousin T. All her brothers, her sister Abhiramasundari and her cousins Balasaraswati and Ranga died before the last decade of the 20th century began. One by one, her relatives left this world. Muktha was the recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi award (1972), All India Radio’s National Artist award and the Music Academy’s Sangeeta Kala Acharya award. Senior musicians, disciples and rasika-s turned up in large numbers to savour, for the last time, the vintage music of the Dhanammal bani. Muktha’s last public concert was at the Musiri Subramania Iyer home in Chennai in January 2004. She possessed a great sense of humour too. She was known as the softest face of the Dhanammal family. Noble and generous to a fault, Muktha had a good word for everyone. She was very kind to her disciples and gave of her all. She also taught a few of her nephews and nieces. Vedavalli, Nirmala Parthasarathi, Nirmala Sundararajan, Ritha Rajan, Meera Seshadri and S. For the next 34 years, Muktha sang tirelessly and taught a number of disciples, prominent among whom are R. When the duo parted, Muktha began giving concerts alone, accompanied by one or the other of her disciples. Some like Semmangudi and MS even learnt from Brinda. They did not draw large crowds, unlike their contemporaries, though many veteran musicians were avid rasika-s of the duo. Brinda-Muktha’s music was not for the ordinary brand of rasika-s, it was for the well initiated and the knowledgeable. With their younger sister Abhiramasundari accompanying them on the violin, the sisters’ tradition-bound music, soaked in melodic purity and full of deep feeling, was found most moving by listeners. Brinda-Muktha’s career never looked back after that and for almost four decades they performed together. An ailing Naina was especially pleased with the singing of Muktha and he blessed both the sisters. Though Brinda and Muktha started giving concerts at a very early age, the turning point came in 1934 when they performed at the Rama Navami celebrations organised by their guru Naina Pillai in Kanchipuram. Dhanammal herself taught Brinda and Muktha about 30 to 40 compositions. A grateful Muktha would later in life give Lakshmiratnam’s name to her only daughter. She taught them innumerable compositions of Dikshitar, Syama Sastry, Subbaraya Sastry, Gopalakrishna Bharati and their family treasure of padam-s and javali-s and moulded their music along the lines of their inimitable grandmother. Naina Pillai was satisfied with their progress and asked Kamakshi to take them back and polish their music in “your mother’s incomparable bani”.īack home, Brinda-Muktha’s aunt Lakshmiratnam became their guru. In the four years that they stayed at Kanchipuram, Brinda and Muktha learnt as many as 400 compositions of Tyagaraja, a few compositions of Syama Sastry and Subbaraya Sastry and innumerable Tevaram and Tiruppugazh songs. When Muktha was seven and elder sister Brinda nine, they were sent to Kanchipuram Naina Pillai for their musical education. She was one among six children of Kamakshi and 13 grandchildren of Dhanammal. Tanjavur Muktha was born in September 1914 to Veena Dhanammal’s fourth daughter Kamakshi. Muktha is survived by her daughter Lakshmi and granddaughters Vardhini Prem and Uma Vasudevan. Muktha, of the renowned vocal duo Brinda-Muktha, passed away on the morning of Sunday, March 11th 2007. Why should I live anymore?” This was the constant refrain of the veteran vocalist and doyenne of the Veena Dhanammal family, after her close friend M.S. Muktha: The last bastion of an inimitable tradition
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