Pugnacity Personified

Veena maestro S Balachander was to classical music what McEnroe was to tennis, says HY Sharada Prasad

I didn't get to see this year's US Open final in which Andre Agassi went down to Roger Federer. I have lost the ability to resist sleep and sit up for the event which, because of the time difference, comes on at an unearthly hour. It is a delight to watch Agassi. An added attraction is the sight of Steffi Graf cheering him. Another player who was exciting to watch was John McEnroe, both for his unbelievable saves and shots and also for the tantrums he threw. I particularly recall one Wimbledon final between him and Jimmy Connors which was wonderful tennis and equally gripping theatre. Luckily, the men's finals are always played on Sunday afternoons when it is still evening here. Two days after the match, I received a letter from the musician S Balachander in which he said: "Yesterday, I played the best Kalyani in my life at the NCPA in Mumbai but the hall was half empty. For how could I play against both McEnroe and Connors and expect to have my way!"

Balachander was to our classical music what McEnroe was to lawn tennis - self-willed, volatile, quick to pick up a quarrel, but altogether superlative. He was dubbed Veena Balachander and identified himself so much with the Veena that he also fashioned his signature in its shape. He could play a dozen other instruments as well as a whole range of drums, besides instruments which traditionally form part of western orchestras. He had been a child prodigy and like most child prodigies he remained a big child even after he grew up. But unlike most musical geniuses, he had a wide range of interests. He loved to jump into public debate on all kinds of cultural and political issues. He was a formidable controversialist and didn't let his rival have the last word. For a man who had no formal education, his verbal skills were remarkable, both in Tamil and in English.

He was a prodigious letter-writer. His letters were not just epistles. They were manifestos, philippics, diatribes, proclamations. Or posters and placards. They were colourful not only in their vocabulary but literally, for he was fond of writing in inks of many colours. Often his letters ran into 50 pages. But he was never tiresome or repetitive. As on his Veena, so in his letters, he was delightfully inventive. What is rarer still, he had humour and could take a joke at himself.

Once my wife took a young person to a concert of his, and as the customary opening, Vaataapi in Hansadhwani, drew to a close, the fellow remarked, 'You had said Balachander would PLAY on the Veena. But he is WORKING SO HARD on it." He was a well-built man and he did give the impression of a wrestler trying to grapple with and somehow subdue the instrument. Somebody who overheard the boy's remark must have liked it and repeated it, and it eventually reached the musician's ears. On returning to Chennai, Balachander wrote to me and said, "In a world dominated by Semmangudis and Narayana Menons, how can musicians get along merely by playing? They have to work hard." Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer was the acknowledged head of the music establishment in the south and Narayana Menon was the director-general of All India Radio. Balachander had a lifelong, running battle with both as he saw them to be symbols of authority. People were also amused how Balachander even went to the extent of denying the very existence of Swati Thirunal because Semmangudi was entrusted with editing and publishing his compositions.

Balachander never asked anything for himself. He was too proud and too self-confident to be thought to be seeking favours. But he expected the courtesy of acknowledgment of his letters. On one occasion, I took quite some time to reply to him and this was weighing on my mind. I got another letter from him. It was a short one in which he said, "Probably, I have become tiresome to you. I promise you I won't write to you again. This will be my last letter to you." And so it proved to be. Fifteen minutes after I read his letter, AIR announced that Balachander had passed away.