'Tiger' Varadachar

‘Tiger' Varadachar

(A STUDY)

Mr. ‘Tiger' Varadachar is among the master-singers of our time. "If you are something in music," writes Mr. E. Krishna Aiyar towards the close of a critical appreciation," and know which is which in the art, you will find in him gems of rare brilliance, not always easy to choose and grasp." This is due to the originality of his genius. In his kirtana, swaram, pallavi, padam, javali, and folk-song, he displays an inimitable method of his own.

Mr. Varadachar builds his alapana on a creative plan, evolving unexpected combinations by an artistic alteration of phraseology, of the long and the short. His bhirkas are like no other’s. Continual new orders of notes flash and vanish, leaving you stunned by their charm. A new series starts from a remote note, yet with a natural link between the end of the last and the beginning of the next. His way is not to evolve gradually from a single note, or to conclude in the same. Mechanical parallelism is his aversion. He fills his bhirkas with consecutive notes as well as by sudden jumps. His slides over a whole gamut are exquisite. Commonplace combinations are, by an artistic vision, clothed in fresh beauty and novelty. The charm of the start and the finish are altogether his own. Theories affect him not, but his style generates new theories. His notes are fine crystals; and his gamakas, live sparks. No raga can resist his blandishments but submits to his manner, ever new and ever elusive.

The structure of an adept’s song is variegated by blends–compounds of two, or more, near or distant notes. Mr. Varadachar brims over with them. Their identity is unsuspected by the unanalytical ear. They look so innocently simple. But when you try to reproduce them on the vina or the violin, their synthetic make-up is disclosed. You then discover that the weird yet dignified effects are due to the lurking presence of a large number of these blends, which are his current coin.

His pallavi is marked by clearness and precision. To follow his time is, even for experts, a hard though a zestful task. In the slowest, as in the quickest pace, he is equally at home. His accuracy is unfailing. Muktayams and makutas are definite and forewarning; subtle variations accompany the commencement, the middle, and the end of each avartana. Lovely swaras appear in sparkling groups, and the resonant individuality of the raga is never missed. His laya is a continual feast, and a problem raised by the varying orders of the notes which intersperse the duration. Jatis are under his thumb. When he gives himself the go, he never tarries or hesitates, nor is he perplexed by any situation. The laya and the tala would seem to wait on him, instead of his waiting on them by artifices known as the ‘filling up of the gap.’ His pallavi is thus a concentration of his intellectual skill no less than his artistic taste.

Mr. Varadachar is one of those responsible for the closer assimilation of the instrumental music with the living voice. He fires the instrumentalists with the same ardour with which he glows. The late Vina Seshanna of honoured memory is said to have observed, on a public occasion, that he was not a tiger, but a lion among musicians. Even professional jealousies give way before the force of genius.

In handling the commonest ragas, or the most familiar folk-songs, he creates a new earth, a new heaven, dipped in all the colours of the rainbow. "Whatever he touches he adorns." The trite and the commonplace becomes, in his hands, classical. The dull and the hackneyed he enlivens and enriches. At every step he creates, and he creates every step. His ideas flow, and each is a new birth, endowed with life, sweetness, and strength. For repetition, look not, for he lacks not in inspiration or invention. His voice is sometimes refractory, but when he has curbed its whims, no slave is more obedient to his lightest bidding. It then, like Ariel, cheerfully performs the tasks imposed by the Master.

He is deeply versed in the art of abhinaya which is at present in imminent danger of dying out. Even in devarnama his power of expression bathes the spectator’s mind in the pure light of heaven. His snatches are a treat. His Hindustani is in the strict manner of Gavayis, and one can hardly discover the imitation when it so faithfully recalls the original.

Life at best is a fight, often a bitter fight. Mr. Varadachar takes it with a fund of humour which triumphs over the ills by insistent defiance. This innate sense of humour illumines and adorns his style, eked out by characteristic motions of the head and the body, to the irrepressible delight of young and old. Only the ‘Talkies’ can preserve this aspect.

Mr. Varadachar is perhaps the only representative now living of the old masters of musical tradition, of the schools of Coimbatore Raghava Aiyar, Pallavi Sesha Aiyar, and Patnam Subrahmania Aiyar. If we are to make any progress in the development of our national music, the unique styles of the great masters should be religiously preserved, for, they combine the intellectual and the emotional elements in the highest measure. Artistes of established fame like Mr. Varadachar are, however, found to be unwilling to feed the gramophone plates with their specimens, for fear that their worth may be cheapened or their manner vulgarised through undeft imitation. Such reluctance has to be overcome in the interests of the science, and for the spread of healthy concepts which must outlive the fashion and the caprice of the hour.