An incurable romantic

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Last week, the world of Carnatic music mourned the death of an incomparable artiste. An English guitar player across the globe wept “we were a musical match made in heaven…” as he lamented the end of a 17-year-old partnership.

 If the world-renowned John McLaughlin felt “devastated,” and music lovers all over grieved at this irredeemable loss, this was no ordinary artiste. He spanned countries with his music. Whether it was chaste classical melodies of the veda parampara tradition, or the lilting tunes of a rhumba or a tango, he was at ease with both genres, and executed them in his masterly style.

Universal appeal

Uppalapu Srinivas did not belong to any one country. He belonged to the world of art. The universality of his music made him a true artiste, since art has no barriers. The very medium that he mastered was an unremarkable instrument called a mandolin. Ungainly in appearance and too commonplace for glittering concert halls, it lay cradled innocuously in his lap until he coaxed heavenly music out of it. Srinivas turned this little toy into an instrument of joyous sound that reverberated across continents. Whether it was the stately “swara raaga sudha” in Sankarabharanam, or a Euro-American fusion piece, the mandolin transformed itself into a vehicle of exquisite sound in his hands.

In the initial years of his musical career, he was severely criticised for using this instrument to play Carnatic music. They labelled his performances a fraud. But this “quiet rebel” continued to play, knowing that sooner or later, his music would speak for itself. As guitarist Vasu Rao said, Srinivas preferred to let his mandolin talk to silence them. The 40-plus albums that he has recorded reflect his genius. They range from solos to jugalbandhis to world music. If Hariprasad Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain and Vikku Vinayakaram joined him to produce a feast of north-south Indian ragas, there were McLaughlin, Michael Brook and Nigel Kennedy to produce a similar feast of world melodies. Srinivas may have won many awards and citations. But his best citation is his own music which broke down all barriers of race, country and ethnicity. In this sense, he was the perfect artiste.

Born in a small hamlet in the west Godavari district of Saint Thyagaraja’s own country, Srinivas was introduced to the mandolin by his father, U Satyanarayana, who was also a classical musician in addition to playing the clarinet in a band! Rudraraju Subbaraju was his first teacher who did not know this new instrument. So, he sang while his pupil played. Srinivas made his debut at the Thyagaraja Aradhana festival when he was nine years old. At 12, he stormed into the famous December season in Madras where he performed his first formal concert. There was no looking back afterwards. 

A prodigal son

People flocked to his concerts, awed by this child prodigy and his quaint instrument which produced intricate ragas and melodies. They came to censure, but stayed to applaud an incredible genius who could make some ordinary frets and strings capture the sublime compositions of Thyagaraja, Dikshitar and other great composers. Using five strings instead of the traditional eight, he trained his electric mandolin to play the ragas and gamakas of Carnatic music. His audiences — the die-hard conservatives of the Carnatic genre — resisted this new-fangled melody. They refused to accept the mandolin on their sacred platforms. Perhaps, it was his quiet determination and faith in himself that saw him finally accepted in music circles. When he was invited to perform in the prestigious Music Academy, U Srinivas had at last arrived on his own turf.

However, it all ended on September 19, when a hospital in Chennai released a one-line announcement about a patient who died “due to liver failure”. Mandolin Srinivas may have died. But, his music will live in all those lovely albums, recordings and above all, in the minds of those who cared to understand it. As fellow artiste T M Krishna put it so eloquently: “When he played, Srinivas disappeared and the Kalyani pervaded the arena… the raga just stood in all its majesty before you.”

Srinivas retained the innocence of childhood all his life. He was an unabashed admirer of that “incurable romantic”, Lalgudi Jayaraman. When he played his lovely thillana in Mohana Kalyanam in a concert in Boston, he remembers excitedly how he got standing ovations after three encores. He understood the splendour of his own artistic creations. He also knew that if they did not move him, how could they move others?