Opinion M S Subbulakshmi award to T M Krishna: My grandaunt would have abhorred this furore

The second concerns our awareness of the terms of her will. I was also a beneficiary of the will left by my great aunt, M S Subbulakshmi. Shortly after her death, I, along with the other beneficiaries, was given a letter outlining her wishes, and these have been  known to me since 2006. Reports that we were unaware of these till recently are erroneous.

I have spoken with several family members, and the general view amongst those whom I consulted is that the legal case is misguided and a waste of valuable court time. Furthermore, it generates unnecessary publicity and a divisive feeding frenzy that M S would have abhorred.

Since M S was a public and iconic figure, people have the right to share their opinions and views about her and have discussions about her life, her music, and her impact on the world of Carnatic music and beyond. Several books and innumerable articles have been written about her. Not all of these have been adulatory or hagiographic. Human nature being what it is, some gossip and attempts at titillation were inevitable. Our family members have generally maintained a reflective silence, knowing that any response would merely provoke unnecessary public discussion, which would not have pleased her.

Many individuals and organisations have held events and instituted awards to celebrate M S Subbulakshmi. Statues of her have been put up. The Government of India struck a coin to honour her. This is only natural and the terms of her will surely could not be binding on the world at large.

Musicians Sudha Ragunathan and A R Rahman performed at the United Nations to celebrate the memory of M S’s 1966 concert for the General Assembly.

Along with another of my cousins, I myself, established a website (msstribute.org) to pay tribute to her. A number of people, including T M Krishna, were invited to share their thoughts and experiences regarding M S. I also organised a music festival in the United States to commemorate her centenary. My nieces Aishwarya and Soundarya, daughters of V Shrinivasan, participated by giving a concert on that occasion, as did the violin maestro V V Subramanian as well as Gowri Ramnarayan and her team from JustUs Repertory. None of us felt any of this was a violation of the terms or the spirit of M S’s will.

Now, I come to the accusations about what T M Krishna wrote and said in his articles and lecture on M S. I have read these, and while some of his statements may be combustive, I do not find them disrespectful. My reading of his words is that he is accusing society at large of minimising her personality, courage, and strength by focusing on the merely cosmetic.

M S Subbulakshmi was as iconoclastic as they come. It must have taken much courage for this young woman from a modest family in Madurai to set out to seek a new life in the big city. Her acting career, her relationship with and eventual marriage to T Sadasivam, even her Suprabhatams, her Vishnu Sahasranamam and her Hanuman Chalisa recordings were all groundbreaking and quite radical in their time.

Like many others before him, Krishna seems to have been trying to explain — perhaps even to himself — the M S Phenomenon. How did such a forward-thinking person and radical trailblazer manage all this while being cloaked by the cover of a traditional and reticent woman? The novelist R K Narayan attempted his own explanation in his short story Selvi.

Could Krishna have been more selective in his use of words? Surely, yes. But is it a matter for legal proceedings with lawyers and the courts? I hope we can all try to be a bit more thick-skinned and not allow our differences of opinion to tear us apart as a society and a people. These are disagreements which we can resolve face to face. We must also accept that we cannot always agree on everything. Our discussions and arguments can be forceful without becoming recriminatory. Through such inquiry, we advance our understanding of many things. Even those who are offended by Krishna’s remarks need not reach out to the courts to intimidate or to suppress.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides will be the final judgment.  However, can we not restrict our argument to the facts? Can we not say we think someone is wrong without saying they are bad? Can we learn to respect the right of others to be different, as well as the right to question our thoughts and beliefs?

The circumstances here surely lead us to wonder whether there are those who are working behind the scenes to sow discord among us. Their interest may not be in protecting the M S Subbulakshmi image as much as in benefiting from the discord itself. I encourage newspapers and reporters to dig deeper into this story. I urge the Carnatic music community to set aside these differences and focus on working together to promote not just the music but also greater inclusivity.

I love my cousin Cheenu (V Shrinivasan). His daughters call me periappa, an honour and a serious responsibility. I write this out of concern over the harm this case is doing to us in M S’s extended and immediate family and to the memory of M S Subbulakshmi and T Sadasivam. I hope Shrinivasan and all who read it will accept it in that spirit and not engage in further ad hominem attacks.