Columnist
The Bhavani Duo

The following was written in 1999, soon after the passing away of B.V. Lakshmanan, by S.V. SESHADRI, music critic and longtime contributor to Sniti, more famous under the nom de plume, AEOLUS. It was inadvertently overlooked at that time. It is now being published both as a tribute to the memory of Seshadri and Lakshmanan, and as an uttama rasika's analysis of the music of the twins.
They did not hail from a place rich in fertility of land or mind like Tanjavur; they were not cradled in a lineage, hoary with traditions of music running through many generations; and, until they began studying music as a regular discipline, they had not even imagined that they would enter a vocation as beckoning and as bewildering as music. In a more literal way and in a far truer sense than in the case of many others, it can be said that they did not choose music as their goal in life, it is music which chose them as its votaries. And they did not belie its choice.