Ganakalanidhi Dr. Vinjamuri Varadaraja Iyengar

Conversation with Vidwan and an artist Sri S Rajam - Feb - Mar 2008

“I am reminded of your Father. One time he, Sandhyavandanam Srinivasarao and I went to see Tiger when he was at Kalakshetra. It was round about 7.00 PM. We all three went there to see him. In those days there was a bus service, from Mylapore to Town and Town to Mylapore. Sometimes they make it Town to Adayar. That is, we could go from Mylapore to Adayar. In those days, Adayar used to mean ‘do not go’ (aDai means reach; aDaiyAr means “one who will not get there”). It was colloquial (rural) area. So we used to go to Mylapore, take the bus and go to Adayar.

He (your Father – Vinjamuri) was such a nice man. He was always cheerful; he was musically inclined and had respect for all musicians. What else need to be said about him? His language was different but he used to speak good Tamil. Even though he was from Telugu country he was very fluent in Tamil. I suppose he had the greatest admiration for Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar. I think he thought of him as his ‘mAnasIka guru’. I think he was his model for Music.

 Tiger was really a tiger. There is no comparison between Tiger and Ramanuja Iyengar. Tiger was really high (level); he was not just a performer; but he was a musician. You see, people get confused between a real musician and a performer. Performer talks only about  performance but a musician not only performs but also could talk about music, about raga, about the composer, about composition and its meaning and all those things. That is what is (the definition of) musician! Was your Father a student of aNNAmalai?”  

I told him about my father getting Music Vidwan diploma from Madras University under Tiger, even before Sambamurthy’s time, and, about his moving to Chidambaram along with Tiger when Tiger moved to aNNAmalai University and then back to Madras when Tiger moved to Kalakshetra. I told him that father was in Hyderabad only for 8 years and but for those 8 years, he was always in Madras. Rajam was very receptive and appreciative of what I was telling him. 

I requested Sri Rajam to paint Sadguru Thyagaraja Kriti ‘Srikantha neeyeda’ (raga – Bhavapriya). He once again remembered Father’s singing of that song saying, “yes, he used to sing that song always. He was very fluent in that. He used to sing, (SR sings) ‘P Ga R S – Sri kantha nee’ and he used get that gandharam so well”. I also requested him to paint ‘Varadarajamupasmahe’ (Deekshitar kriti in Saranga) saying that it would have two meanings for me – one is Father, his name being Varadaraja and the other Kanchi Sri Varadaraja Perumal. He agreed to paint that also along with the other. He told me that he would use the 2 Thyagaraja Kritis on Varadaraja Perumal also in his painting. Since the Thyagaraja Kritis are rare and are in rare ragas I requested Sri Rajam to sing them for me to tape, so that there will be recording of those apoorva kritis in apoorva ragas, for future generations. 

He sang both songs for me to tape with a short introduction of the arOhana and avarOhana and also the type of the rAgAs that they are set in

                              varadA navanItAsA pAhi -rAgapanjaram – Mela 28

                           S R Ma P N D S’ – S’ N D M R S

                           varadarAjA ninnukOri -swarabhooshaNi – Mela 22

                         S G M P D N S’ – S’ N D P M R S,

                        (SR - Naina Pillai used to sing very well)                                                                

I told Sri Rajam that his paintings will be in our possession for many years to come, in my Father’s library when that is set up. He told me the story about how Paramacharya wanted them to sing the song five times, in Varadaraja Perumal Koil. They were welcomed with pUrNa kumbham and they got the 2 songs written on slabs on the walls of the temple, in Tamil – Kanchi Varadaraja Peromal Koil, which is on a small hill (giri). He was happy that his paintings are going to an artiste’s family like ours and said they (people in music field) should do more to ‘our’ (Vinjamuri) family.

(Sri Rajam finished the paintings in about a month and sent a postcard to Radha Sreevaran (another daughter of Vinjamuri) who paid him the reminder of Rs.7,500.00 (Total Rs 10,000.00 – Rs 5,000.00 each painting – Size 10.5” / 14.5” – artists’ water color painting on hand made paper) and collected the paintings. The paintings were framed at ‘Sherman Art Gallery, 4039 Lincoln Blvd, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292. The paintings were framed with acid free back, non-refractive and UV protected glass with rusted golden frame at $ 265/ per 2 paintings).