Spotlight
Bombay Sisters - A Sruti Interview

A pleasing stage presence, clean pathantara, wide multilingual repertoire, control over voice and sruti and perfect coordination have all combined to make C. Saroja and C. Lalitha one of the most popular duos in the history of Carnatic music. In addition to the concert stage, the sisters have achieved phenomenal success in another medium. Starting from 1980, the pair have released hundreds of cassettes and CDs with a large component of devotional music. Tamil compositions, even Tamil translations of well known Sanskrit hymns and verses, have taken the sisters from the concert stage to the humblest of homes. Admirably, they have made it a point to repay their debt of gratitude to music by expending an appreciable portion every year from their record earnings towards the promotion of young talent under the banner of the Muktambaram Trust named after their parents. Their pre-eminence notwithstanding, Saroja and Lalitha, quietly proud of their achievements, are humility personified when they acknowledge the sacrifices made by parents and spouses and the painstaking thoroughness of guru Sangita Kalanidhi T.K. Govinda Rao.
Fond of drama, Too
While they lived in Bombay, Saroja and Lalitha, ardent and young students of
music, were fond of taking part in musical dramas.
The sisters' music
education had actually begun even before Mani Bhagavatar started teaching them.
For, when they were yet little girls, they had the opportunity to listen to
good music because their father would take them to concerts and well-known musicians
would visit their home. And when the Bharatiya Music & Fine Arts Society was
established, Iyer was closely associated with it and the sisters used to sing
prior to the start of concert programmes, to help with the mike-testing. While
this helped them overcome any stage fright they might have had, this kind of
activity was a prelude to participation in various programmes arranged at the
school and in music competitions.
Not surprisingly, they knocked off quite a few prizes. It was during those formative years, of activity and achievement both, that Saroja and Lalitha, who even then considered themselves a team, began dreaming of a bright future in music for themselves. They were inspired by the modern musical trinity of M.S. Subbulakshmi, D.K. Pattammal and M.L. Vasanthakumari. Seeing the crowds which thronged to listen to MS, DKP and MLV and the respect and admiration they enjoyed, the sisters, especially Lalitha, developed a desire to achieve similar fame! The total involvement, the bhava, of MS's music, the 'kanakku suddham' or precision of DKP's music and the febrile imagination of MLV— the something unexpected that she was always capable of giving— these caught their imagination most. And if one of the three served as a model, it was MS
Their father,
Chidambara Iyer retired from the Railways in 1955. He then began planning the
emigration to Madras which, he still held, was desirable for the purpose of
promoting the musical career of Saroja and Lalitha. And he effected the
transfer of residence in December 1957. This proved, in the event, a wise move.
Following the relocation, he had both Saroja and Lalitha enrolled at the
Central College of Camatic Music (later called the Government Music College and
now the Government Music Training Centre) whose principal at that time was
Musiri Subrahmania Iyer. In 1959, Saroja won a Government of India scholarship
to study music directly under Musiri, but she did not take it up immediately.
Two years later, Lalitha too received a similar scholarship and then the two of
them began their apprenticeship under Musiri. Meanwhile both had completed the
two year course at the Central College leading to the title of Sangeeta Vidwan.
Commenting on their
studies at Central College and speaking in tandem, the sisters told Sruti:
"We were lucky in getting good teachers for whom neither mani [Tamil word,
meaning 'time'] nor money mattered."
When Saroja and Lalitha
had Musiri for their mentor under the scholarship study programme, the latter
did little of the coaching himself. Most of it was done by his disciples T.K.
Govinda Rao and A.S. Venkataraman. But as and when he was available, Musiri— or
Iyerval as the sisters refer to him— had long sessions with them, running to
four or five hours.
Saroja recalls: Appa [father] used to come in search of us to Oliver Road [now called Musiri Subrahmaniam Road] in Mylapore to find out if we had finished our day's lessons, but Iyerval would not stop the class till he had finished a particular item. At times we would wonder if we had not sung too much for the day! Even varnams he taught with elaborate technical flourish, which made one imagine he was training us in singing a 4-kaIai pallavi! The kind of niraval he executed was out of this world. Saroja and Lalitha both ungrudgingly praise the role of Govinda Rao in making them what they are today. They disclose that he developed the performing musicians in them in myriad ways— structuring the concerts, teaching items to suit different parts of a concert, coaching them in singing raga-tanam-pallavi and so on.
Over the years, Govinda
Rao made it a point to attend their concerts and give valuable tips on what
they did and what they did not, and what they should and should not have done.
They gained ever new insights, thanks to his evaluation of the concerts. Lalitha
expands this point: The most important thing we learnt from our guru [Govinda
Rao] was that the sangatis to be sung for a kriti should reflect, should
enhance its bhava and not distort it. Thus each sangati, to be carefully
chiselled out, was not to depend upon the raga alone, but the kriti too. It
should depend much less on the singer's potential and the potential of her
voice. Just because she was capable of scintillating bravura passages, a singer
should not get these into a song conveying a different mood.
Saroja continues:
Another important 'don't' in our school concerns niraval, namely that one
should not do niraval any which way one can. Sahitya chedam [or incorrect
splitting oflyrics] was not to result from the niraval. Obviously there would be
passages unsuitable for doing niraval. And there are kriti-s that do not allow
niraval anywhere. We have to bear all this in mind. Govinda Rao was to the
sisters an ideal teacher. In helping them prepare their concert programmes, he
would ask their opinion on what they thought they should sing on a particular
occasion, which raga each of the two sisters would be confident with and so on.
Then he would arrange the programme on the basis of the items suggested by the
disciples. His suggestions, at the end of the concert, would prove invaluable
if they had a concert the very next day especially. "He did this for
several years," the sisters repeat. He also did not hesitate to praise
them for the positive aspects of their concerts and such praise went a long way
in bolstering their confidence. "That was our good fortune. Rather, it was
bhagavat sankalpam, I should say," one of the sisters says. Obviously, she
speaks for both. Musiri was not in the pink of health when the sisters started
performing and so he could not come to any of their concerts. But Govinda Rao
filled the void efficiently.
The Bombay Sisters'
first ever concert opportunity came in 1960 when they were scheduled to
broadcast 'live' over AIR-Madras. Earlier, they had been given a chance to sing
over AIR-Bombay after successfully completing the audition and getting the
grade. But Saroja had gone to Madras to write a scholarship test and also to
seek admission in the Central College of Camatic Music. Lalitha felt she should
not sing alone and hence wished to cancel this programme. But Kalyani
Varadarajan, who was in charge then, refused to agree and Lalitha had to
fulfill the engagement. She sang well no doubt, but did not have any
satisfaction singing solo. Thus it was that they looked forward to the chance
they received to sing for AIR-Madras. On the day scheduled for the broadcast,
they were at the studios well in time. When everything was set, the
announcement came that the then Governor of Tamil Nadu, AJ. John, had passed
away and all programmes stood cancelled, to be replaced by devotional music.
The sisters were crestfallen. The station executives in charge told them that
they could sing some devotional music, but the sisters did not have any idea of
what devotional music meant. Hence they more or less decided to opt out. They
were about to leave the studios when Palghat V. Sundaram, the ghatam vidwan,
came out from a recording session in another part of the building and saw them
about to leave. When the sisters told their sorry tale to him, he chided them:
"Don't ever refuse a programme and that too your first one. The only thing
you have to do is avoid singing raga, niraval and swara and render the kriti-s
in a simple and straight way. Go and complete the assignment." They did as
he told them to and their first ever radio concert together from Madras did
take place after all on the scheduled date.