Reviews
THE TAMIL PADAM

The Tamil Padam – A Dance Music Genre of South India. By Matthew Harp Allen. [Published by
Jenny Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd.
Singapore. Pp. 424. Rs. 4,187. ISBN 978-981-4968-56-0 (Hardcover). ISBN
978-1-003-33638-9 (eBook).
“A padam well sung or danced is one of the
quiet corners of this world. There is clarity that comes from the quiet
unfolding of order without perceived attempts to attract or dazzle.” This sums
up one’s experience with this book as the author gently unwraps the layers of
history, traditions, patronage, composers and their music before giving the
text, the musical notes and the meanings of 30 Tamil padams along with their
performance history.
Beginning with
the emergence of Tanjavur as the centre for arts under the Cholas, the author
traces the political history of South India under the Nayak kings and the
Marathas of Tanjore. He takes us through
the lineage of succession, with a brief history about each of the kings and
their contribution towards art – some being scholars, artists and composers in
their own right or as patrons to artists and composers in their courts. He describes the period of anarchy, the
handing over of the all of the territories (other than Tanjavur) by Serfoji II
to the British and the impact it had on the arts before winding up the chapter
with the death of Sivaji II and kicking in of the Doctrine of Lapse ending the
Maratha line at Tanjavur. This political
history weaves within it, the history of the dance and music genre called
padam.
The third
chapter focuses on the biographies and compositions of some popular
composers. The author brings out their
life stories, influences and anecdotes from their lives, their patrons, other
composers whose work influenced them, the attributes of their compositions that
stand out and the transmission and publication of their padams. While talking of the biographies of the Tamil
composers, he mentions that ‘it continues to live and grow’ and the biographies
are largely spun out of one or two anecdotes and/or from the song texts
themselves. And therefore, give us more insights into the values-cultural,
religious, musical and artistic -held by the participants, connoisseurs and
scholars of the tradition than they do about specific details of composer’s lives.
The composers
who are featured are Muttuttandavar, Papavinasa Mudaliar, Marimutta Pillai,
Ottukkadu Venkatasubba Ayyar, Arunachala Kavirayar, Ghanam Krishna Iyer,
Kavikunjara Bharati, Vaidisvarankoil Subbarama Ayyar, Gopalakrishna Bharati. The author has chosen a few compositions of
each of these composers and has enlisted the performance history of those
padams with generous anecdotes. For
instance, he quotes M. Arunachalam while discussing the padam, Kalai Thooki
by Marimutta Pillai.This song, he says, was one of the greatest hits in Tamil
Nadu at that time. This song also grew
in popularity to the dance of Balasaraswati, then a young girl, when her mother
Jayammal sang it in a slow, chowkka kala, enabling her daughter to bring out
all the expressions, through hand, body and eye movements. He goes on to say
that the one documented performance of Kalai Thooki by Balasaraswati was
in 1935: her student Nandini Ramani told the author that Bala had danced this
song only relatively early in her career. In the appendix for this padam he
provides the following performance history:
Recordings:
V.V.
Krishna Bhagavatar (Mayavaram Krishna Ayyar)
1930s HMV
N80949 OE2093
M S
Subbulakshmi
1940s HMV
N18234 OML 3966-3967
Dance
performances:
T
Balasaraswathi 1935
Hemamalini 1945
Anandhi
and Radha 1947
Kamala 1948,53,55,56,57
Mrinalini
Sarabhai 1949
Radha
Sri Ram 1953
The Appendix II
has the verses, the transliteration and the meaning of each verse given.
The author then
goes on to delineate the concept of padams.
He classifies them into groups based on the direction of the address
contained in the poems and concludes that the core repertoire of padams to
be centered around a rhetoric of indirect address. Further, the songs chosen favor Murugan as
the nayaka, and is portrayed as the lover or potential lover, while Nataraja is
sung of as the great dancing God. The
classicalness or non-classicalness of a padam, with discussions on some chosen
ragas and on the concept of Varnamettu is the final chapter of the book.
This book is a
treasure for those who want to understand the Tamil padams holistically – from
the composer’s desk to the stage. The
documentation provided is a boon to art historians, dancers, musicians,
scholars and academicians in the field of dance and music. The language is simple and lucid, making
heavy concepts easy to understand. The
information flows through the chapters in an uncluttered, organic manner making
it easy to find your quiet corner.
ANURADHA RAMESH
(Bharatanatyam dancer and faculty at University of Silicon Andhra)