COLOMBO: Carnatic vocalist T M Krishna has become the first Indian in 30 years to perform at Kilinochchi, a war-racked town in North Sri Lanka which had been the nerve centre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). According to V Anandasangaree, president of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), who was MP for Kilinochchi in 1960s and 70s, the last of the Indian ‘greats’ to have performed in that town was playback singer T M Soundararajan.
“And that was way back in the early 70s. TMS had enthralled the audience with hits like Ponaal Pohattum Poda from the 1960 film Paalum Pazhamum,” Anandasangaree recalled.
Since then, there had been a continuous artistic drought, which ended only with Krishna’s visit this week. Given the brutality of Eelam War IV, multiple displacement, a two-year incarceration in refugee camps, and the still unsettled post-war life in the Kilinochchi area, the audience that Krishna got was, understandably, small.
But the 150 people in the hall were “appreciative”, he told Express. “I sang Tamil songs by popular composers like Bharathiar and Papanasam Sivam. At the end, a gentleman came up to me and said that the fact that I had come all the way to entertain the people here, was a source of great happiness for him. For me, that was the most touching moment, more valuable than an award,” Krishna said. Applauding the resilience of the Lankan Tamils, Krishna said that he was astonished by the way the people of North Lanka had kept up their interest in music, dance and other arts, despite many traumas they were subjected to.
“The Ramanathan Academy of Fine Arts in Jaffna has 200 students learning Bharatanatyam, Carnatic Music and the visual arts. I found the students there as bubbly as students in India. I would like the Government India to help this institution tie up with Kalakshetra so that the two could exchange students and faculty and raise the bar in all the arts,” Krishna said. Krishna rebutted the criticism that his visit was no answer to the problems of the Lankan Tamils. “A society which is rich in the arts will be less violent. The arts can also unite people because the arts are non-political,” he said.