As a child she remembers being so moved by K V Narayanaswamy’s music that she had once looked up his number in the directory to call up the maestro and tell him, “I wish you half of my life. I’ll retain the other half just to hear you sing.”
To the legendary Lalgudi Jayaraman, she had run up, a child of some ten years, to ask him to come and perform at her house, only to beat a hasty retreat when the violin virtuoso had asked her smilingly whether she would really like that.
“I ran away without giving my address!” Lakshmi Devnath, now middle-aged, recalls with a laugh. (Later, she was to become Lalgudi’s biographer with her work An Incurable Romantic: The Musical Journey of Lalgudi Jayaraman that came out last year.)
Lakshmi, who is based in Chennai, says Carnatic music has always been her passion. It is this passion that has motivated her to fill what she calls a major vacuum in children’s literature.
“There’s enough reading material for kids on science, literature, history, mythology and other subjects. But next to nothing on Carnatic music and its makers,” says Lakshmi, who was in the capital city for the launch of her book on Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma, a graphic biography of the composer-king that comes with a “first-ever” tag. It is not, however, a first venture with Lakshmi. Since 2011, she has been bringing out the series she calls Pictures of Melody, biographies of the legends of Carnatic music told in comic book format for children.
“Swathi Thirunal’s is the fifth in the series and with his biography, I start the ‘composer series’,” says Lakshmi, whose other works in the series include graphic biographies of M S Subbulakshmi, G N Balasubramaniam, T Brinda and Madurai Mani Iyer. “I’m a story-teller,” Lakshmi avers. “I read and collect every possible little detail about the Carnatic legend and reproduce them in a manner children would find appealing. Not just about their concerts and musical careers but interesting incidents from their childhood as well.”
In GNB’s biography, for example, a few panels show young GNB dressing up in costumes during Navarathri to go and sing at his neighbours’ homes.
“It was after one of their neighbours told him off for singing uninvited at her house that GNB’s mother decided to keep ‘golu’ in their house so he wouldn’t have to go and sing anywhere else,” says Lakshmi.
She has also peppered her works with old and often hard-to-come-by photographs. The graphic biography of M S Subbulakshmi, for instance, has stills from the 1940s movies ‘Savithri’ and Meera’ which the “queen of melody” had acted in. Her work in this genre began back in 2000, when she wrote a series of stories that appeared in an English daily and later, in a magazine dedicated to art.
“These stories, such as those of Carnatic music and musicians in the medieval ages, were told in conversations between a mother and her spirited daughter Sargam,” says Lakshmi.
Another book by Lakshmi - the precursor of sorts for the current Pictures of Melody series - is ‘Poorva: Magic, Miracles and the Mystical Twelve where the young girl Poorva takes a journey through space and time to be introduced to the 12 Azhwar saint-poets. “This is now about to be reprinted,” says Lakshmi, adding that another Poorva book was in the offing.