My article on Susheela Raman can be accessed at the Times of Inia epaper site, Chennai edition on page 6 http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid=31807&dt=2015061
or at
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/Fusion-puts-Tamil-bhakti-music-on-global-stage/articleshow/47650387.cms
I give below the manuscript version of my article:
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Where words become sounds: Susheela Raman’s art of
ecstasy
by M.D.Muthukumaraswamy
Susheela Raman’s uses of the texts
of Tamil sacred Bhakti songs in her hybrid music are certainly controversial
since they tease, jar, and retune the native ears steeped in Tamil Bhakti
tradition. While tunes, like tales, are known to be promiscuous as they travel
across cultural boundaries to acquire new contexts, listening publics, and
musical partners, words, in contrast, are bound to their native contexts,
belief systems, and fidelity to meanings. Religious traditions develop musical systems
to preserve the integrity of words in their sacred texts, and any compromises
or liberties that would affect the integrity of words would wound and rupture
emotions cultivated by beliefs. Susheela Raman declares in her official website
that she has always made music a vehicle of emotion with the same intensity of
purpose that she offers herself and her music to her audience. She further
says, “I don’t want to respect artificial barriers
between music, I want to channel everything into the experience. The music of the subcontinent is hugely varied
and is always changing. It always has new dimensions to explore. Talk of
‘fusion’ sound like a compromise between unmoving cultural blocs. But music is
not like that here, or anywhere. Music is like a Goddess that is always
changing its mind, never straightforward. To earn her blessings and stay close
to her, musicians have to try new things.”
How
do we, the native speakers of Tamil, come to terms with the emotional
experiences offered by Susheela Raman’s compositions? When Susheela sings ‘Paalum Thelithenum’ (milk and pure
honey) an Avvaiyar’s prayer to Vinayaka recited everyday by millions of Tamil
children with a twang in her velvety voice, the invitation is surely
compelling. What is to be lisped with childish innocence assumes a husky edge
in Susheela’s beginning line and when she repeats the word ‘thunga’ (elephant trunk) unnecessarily
and distorts and elongates ‘thoo’ in the word ‘thoomaniye” (pure and precious treasure) ‘maniye’
is completely lost on us and we are far removed from the prayer we know of. We have already forgiven her for
mispronouncing the word ‘theli’ in ‘thelithenum’ with a lighter ‘l’ which is
a common mistake even the television newsreaders commit. We do not know why the
line offering four eatables to Vinayaka invites swaying of the hips from
Susheela and even before we come out of our wonder Susheela makes the gesture
of spinning a top and lifts her one hand like a cricket umpire while requesting
the three kinds of Tamil from Vinayaka. The psychedelic soft rendering of ‘Vinyaganey’ in tonal varieties is a
saving grace and so is the electric guitar interlude and both are appropriate
for her ecstatic gyrations, eyes-shut trances, and wild hair whippings.
For
Susheela, the high voltage Bhakti ecstasy is not to be achieved through slow
ascendance; she simply plunges into it in the very first opening line as she
does in Vel. K.B.Sunderambal, Madurai
Somasundram, and Bangalore Ramani Amma would have also begun their first line
of Murugan Bhakti song in a high pitch and would have gone for a higher pitch
with the progress of their songs as their celebratory festive ambience would
have demanded it. Susheela has no such
compulsions and her European audience would not have cared less had she opted
for a more sober opening. However,
Susheela’s first leap into ecstasy is a style that facilitates her fusion of
different genres of music as evidenced in her rendering of Madurai Somu’s
classic ‘Marudamalai maamaniye
murugaiyya’. In the native rendering set in kanada darpari raga Madurai
Somu would ascend into emotional heights only after a few syllables. Kunnakudi
Vaidhyanathan’s violin accentuates Somu’s climb and the ecstatic bursts come
nearly in the end. What Susheela does is to begin in the second half of the
original Tamil song, and replace the native Morsing, Gatam, and violin
interlude with the signing of Mian Miri Qawwals from Lahore. Followed by the
Tabla Susheela launches her ‘Marudamalai
maamaniye’ from a still higher pitch with a faster rhythm. The effect is
terrific because of the newness of the Quwwali singing merging perfectly with
the Tamil bhakti high singing. The faster rhythm does not allow Susheela to
distort words and the song stays on a height hitherto unknown for a while. When
she hands over the mantle back to the Quwwali chorus the similarity of rhythms
smoothens the transition. Susheela’s frenzied whipping of the hair does add its
visual quality to the orgasmic outbursts. In a way Susheela discovers and
demonstrates the inner flow and the connectivity that exists between Quwwali
singing and Tamil bhakti music.
When Susheela sings ‘Velundu maiyilundu’ with the interceptions from Quwwali musicians
singing ‘Nuri Nuri’, the mixture already feels like a natural flow. It also
becomes clear that the meanings of the words no longer matter to anyone except
the singers themselves, and the affective dimensions of music reach the
audience as pure rhythmic sounds and bodily gestures.
For
the European audience Susheela’s eclecticism could be part of her appeal.
UK-born Susheela grew up in Australia singing the South Indian classical music
her Tamil parents encouraged her to train in. Her training shows its beautiful
results when she when renders something soft and soulful like ‘Kamatchi”.
Without the distractions of the backing band we could almost hear the
Australian twangs in her classically trained voice. When Susheela’s voice
itself is ingrained with such fusion one cannot really complain of the feet
stomping, hands flaying, head banging, and hair flogging. Don’t we all know
that world music is all about being embodied with music?
Listening
through Susheela Raman’s three albums, Salt
Rain, Music For Crocodiles, and 331/3 one would be surprised to learn
how Tamil bhakti music’s aesthetics continues to be at the center of her works.
One might even rediscover the value of Tamil bhakti music’s value in their
inherited contexts. In the native contexts the bhakti music is a vehicle for
devotees to achieve communion with their gods guided through the meaning of
words and the ecstatic experience is the result of such communion. In the Susheela Raman variety of world music
the ecstasy, and emotional heights are already there as rhythms, sounds,
gestures, and ambience. Devoid of word meanings, we experience words mingling
with other sounds to create pure music. Perhaps only through such channels and
loss of word meanings, native Tamil bhakti music could reach out and achieve
its universal appeal.
For
Tamil bhakti music is both ancient and contemporary, and it is deeply ingrained
in the consciousness of the Tamils living worldwide. For instance, while the
poem ‘Paalum thelithenum’ is a Sangam age composition attributed to
Avvaiyar, the grand old lady of Tamil poetry, ‘Marudamalai maamaniye murugaiyya’ is a film song written by
Kannadasan. Along with the Saivite and Vaishnavite bhakti movements Muruga
worship had seeped through Tamil history from the ancient times, and it
achieved majoritarian canonical status in the fifteenth century as evidenced by
the corpus of songs written by Arunagiri Nathar. Trance behavior and Tamil
Muruga bhakti are intimately intertwined, and it takes a Susheela Raman to
identify its potential to syncopate with other musical traditions of ecstasy
such as Sufi Quwaali music of Pakistan. We do not know whether Tamil diaspora appreciates
Susheela’s music. For the European audiences and even the Bangalore audiences who
Susheela started enthralling recently, Tamil bhakti music’s civilizational
meanings will remain remote.
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