The Reluctant Genius

Four years ago, I found myself drifting away from Carnatic music - Law School's reinforcement of popular music perpetrated through the mp3 sharing culture, and the need to not feel left out when people were discussing the latest Audioslave album, or some obscure Beatles' song had an indelible impact on my musical tastes. Although I still listen to Audioslave and The Beatles, one little incident brought Carnatic music right back into the top spot. While looking through Periamma's vast music collection, I came across this cassette that had T.R.Mahalingam printed on it (with a typewriter, presumably) - one of those recorded cassettes, neatly labelled in her years in the US. Having heard a lot about Mali, from my grandmother, but never having ever heard him play, I decided to listen to that cassette, even though there was this Jimi Hendrix CD waiting to be explored.

Wafting through the speakers of the little Phillips cassette player was the most quaint and extraordinary Sankarabharanam I had ever experienced. Each phrase was distinctly Sankarabharanam, but was still nothing like I had ever heard anywhere. His shrill flute produced a sound that was stamped with his unmatched genius, without seemingly stretching the boundaries of the raga. The alapanas were punctuated by long pauses, almost as if he was giving you time to digest what you just heard. And just when I thought I might never hear anything that beautiful, he started Kapi. Weaving the entire alapana around one or two notes and recurring phrases, he played a Kapi, the likes of which I have never heard again in my life, except in two other recordings, each of them approaching the raga from a different perspective. When he meandered in the mandhra sthayi in another recording of Kalyani, I felt the whole world dissolving into a mass of irrelevance. Nothing seemed worthwhile anymore.

Suddenly, I was obsessed. Like an alcoholic who couldn't go a day without alcohol, I needed Mali's music to keep me sane. Unfortunately, the more I learned about his life, the more disappointed I became. Being a reluctant performer, which according to a biography was a result of the exploitation of his talent by his family in the early years, he recorded very little. When he was older, he took to the bottle, made fewer and fewer public appearances, claimed that he suffered from this recurring 'headache' that caused his mind to go blank, and didn't turn up on days when his concerts were scheduled.

Today, Mali's music exists to my generation in a few studio recordings, and one live concert recording that I have come across. But to those who have listened to his concerts, I can see their eyes moisten when they talk of his version of Begada, or Hamsanaadam, or those little folk tunes that he used to play towards the end of his concerts. For many 'rasikas', as we are referred to, he will remain the greatest instrumentalist ever - Miles Davis,
Hendrix, Coltrane, Zakir Hussain can all make way for this little known King.