Both husband and wife hum as they move around their home, but the tunes are mostly light and breezy. The couple is dressed in casuals, and not in the traditional way. At one glance, Sriram Parasuram and Anoorada Sriram defy your concept of the archetypal Indian classical musicians.
The study in their Chennai house has more than a couple of shelves. Again, it is not just music CDs and cassettes, but books — and, most of them, fiction. Including, children’s stuff. Well, primarily a Carnatic vocalist-violinist, Sriram has not just been composing and producing musical albums, but is also closely associated with literature: he works with Karadi Tales, a publishing house based in the city.
Sriram guided Anoorada, a gold medalist from Madras University, more than a decade ago when she was pursuing Ethnomusicology in Wesleyan University while they were both doing advance studies in Connecticut of northeastern United States. That rendezvous led the couple to begin a jugalbandi in life that is proving to be a wonderful marriage of ideas and interests with a shared passion for all things musical.
Today, Anoorada is an accomplished Hindustani vocalist as well as a Western classical opera musician, besides being a film-music singer.
So, how is it for them as a couple pursuing the same profession? Gushes Sriram: “Definitely helpful. We learn a lot from each other. Currently I am pursuing music as a purist. Anoorada will try anything, she is very accepting. Musically, she is much more open than me. In the aesthetic domains, there are points where we disagree…ones of cordial differences.”
Television has made them a popular couple.
Their weekly programme, 'Ellame Sangeetham Thaan' (which translates to ‘Everything is Music’), which is 10 days short of completing its first year, has been offering viewers all genres of music, in both Hindustani and Carnatic styles, by their presenting classical Deccani and upcountry compositions, besides film songs, folk music and traditional ditties.
Won’t such a vast variety of genres distract the audience? No, believes the couple. “The more, the merrier,” says Sriram, a Mumbai-raised Tamilian, now in his mid-forties. Like him, Kerala-born Chennaiite Anoorada, who has just turned 40, attributes their versatility to their upbringing. That’s why, “our performances are so eclectic”, Sriram adds.
Sriram’s first Carnatic guru was his mother, even as his father had a leaning toward Hindustani. Anoorada, on her part, believes she has “inherited” her playback singing skills from her mother.
Sriram, a PhD in World Music, is trained in Hindustani under late Pandit CR Vyas, and in Carnatic under luminaries like KS Narayanaswamy, Krishnamurthy Bhagavathar, T Viswanathan and TN Krishnan. As for Anoorada, she started training in music at the age of six and has been performing since she was 12. Today, she has to her credit more than a 2,000 film songs in both Hindi and Dravidian languages.
Anoorada believes that one’s ability to perform a range of music idioms stems from the ability to assimilate experiences. “You need to be non-judgmental. It is not tolerance, not accommodation, but a love for what you listen that makes you perform.” Sriram, who started learning the violin at the age of four and gave his first public performance as many years later, went on to become a mechanical engineer. An alumnus of the prestigious IIM-Calcutta, he maintains it is music where his heart rejoices.
And accolades and awards have been crowning the singers: from Sriram’s President of India Gold medal in 1986 for both Carnatic and Hindustani music, to Anoorada’s 2007 Kalaimamani award of the Tamil Nadu government for her contribution to film and classical music.
The couple, with their innovative approach to jugalbandis of the Carnatic and Hindustani styles, have been performing together since the mid-1990s. They package it differently to ensure that the concerts are non-stereotypical. So, how do they compare the two classical styles? “Both are glorious in their own ways; very precious,” declares Sriram. “It is almost futile to compar them.” Adds Anoorada: “There can be no comparison as such between Carnatic and Hindustani.”
But doesn’t the lay listener tend to appreciate Hindustani more readily than Carnatic? Sriram agrees. “That’s perhaps because Hindustani has a higher sensual appeal. Carnatic presupposes a jnanam base; it has an evident streak of intellect.” And film music? “There, both the lyrics and instruments are appealing. The subjects relate to life around you. It is attractive overall.”
At this, Anoorada speaks about how yesteryear classical vocalists took the popular music route of films. “For instance, M S Subbulakshmi and D K Pattammal,” she points out. “The current crop is also doing so. History repeats itself!” And adds, “The way the voice is cultured in Carnatic enables one to sing other styles.”
Sriram asserts that a musician should always be in a state of flux if one has to improve. “You have to be receptive and sensible to better your performance,” he says, lamenting that contemporary classical musicians mostly present only a small clutch of attractive ragas. “This, when the wealth we in India have in terms of ragas, styles, instruments in the world, is amazing.”
For one who is seeking to “preserve the purity” in traditional music, there is the dilution, fusion and erosion for Sriram to notice all around. “I meditate to calmly
accept reality, and not fight it.” And this isn’t a point that Anoorada likes to disagree on with her husband, though she is all for vibrancy.
—The writer is a Delhi-based freelance journalist and poet. Kolu_poorni@yahoo.com