Melodious musing

In conversation

Have you interacted with the music app ‘Shilpa’? She’s been around since 2013. She does not feature among the barrage of applications in the mobile phone’s expanding space. The chances of meeting ‘Shilpa’ are more on a stage. She is an app with a difference because she sings in the flesh and is brought to life by M D Pallavi during the solo performance that is the play C Sharp, C Blunt.  

Pallavi is the singer (playback singer) whose musical pitches, especially of bhaavageethe (emotional poetry), are one of Karnataka’s favourite staples, sure. But her creative parallels are just as fascinating.

“I’m on my way to South Africa to perform C Sharp, C Blunt,” she said a few days ago, in her soft-spoken voice, after a press conference that launched the Ganesha Utsava 2015. (She was among the team that paid musical tribute to film composer Illaiyaraja.)

It is by invitation that she has had to perform in South Africa. The play is the creation of German director Sophia Stepf and “is a witty, humorous and satirical interrogation of what it is like being a woman in the entertainment industry today,” according to the website flinntheatre.com. Pallavi holds a META Award (Mahindra Excellency in Theatre Awards, 2014) for her performances of the play.

Her penchant for adventure in front of the camera has grown from the days of being in a family of artistes. She recalls, “My great grandfather, A N Subbarao, was a painter and the founder of Kalamandir School of Fine Arts, which is very much alive and kicking. My grandfather was a journalist, film critic and street theatre activist. He founded the institution Abhinaya Taranga, a Sunday school of drama for people who have day jobs, but like to pursue theatre. My mother is the principal of that theatre school. My father was an actor... I performed in street plays as well.”

Pallavi the actor’s latest mantle is of a mother to a 10-year-old boy in a film directed by Nandita Das, which also casts actors Prakash Raj and Prakash Belawadi. 

The actor also believes that standing behind a camera is equally dramatic. She has directed a short film (not her first) titled Playgrounds along with her friend Shamik Sen Gupta, which is “about an auto driver based in Bengaluru who suddenly discovers a child in the auto’s back seat. He has to find out where the child came from. He also has a lot of problems at home. A sick relative. He has to leave all that behind and find out more about this little boy. It’s an out-of-the-ordinary day in the life of an ordinary person.”

When a person is multi-talented, the faculties of talent take turns to shine on, perhaps. But the power in her voice to mesmerise listeners has remained a constant for a long time now. She says, “I learnt Hindustani classical under Pandit Ram Rao Nayak and Pandit Rajabhau Sontakke, and sugama sangeetha under Mysore Ananthaswamy and Raju Ananthaswamy.”

And, she can go on and on about the musicians who have inspired her in different ways. “Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s clarity with meaning, Begum Akhtar’s renditions, Kumar Gandharva’s sufism in his classical renditions, Bob Dylan’s poetic singing, Freddie Mercury’s energy, Michael Jackson’s quest for perfection in his recordings, Tom Waits’s lazy renditions, Lou Reed’s ease with expressing the impossible...”

Music, she says, did throw a light on the sheltered life she has led. To pin down the year would be to go back to 2007, when she “was invited to London to perform in an international production called Motherland, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Slave Trade Act. I met artistes from all over the world. One of them, Eugene Skeef, told us about his experiences in ‘Apartheid Africa’ and how he was activist Steve Biko’s aide till he escaped to London. That was an eye-opener for me.”

Music also did bring her closer to Arun Kumar, her husband, who has carved a niche for himself as a much-sought-after percussionist (drums) in the music industry. The playback singer says with a laugh that she has “known him for donkey’s years, since 1995,” and that they “were acquainted well enough with each other even before dating and entering wedlock.” 

As an artiste couple, she says, “We are critical of each other’s works. We are our worst critics. If he says he likes my work, then it’s a compliment, because it never happens. In that way, we help each other a lot.”

For an artiste whose voice lilts the tunes, gives life to characters on screen, shouts “cut”, and also dubs other voices, Pallavi draws her vocal strength “from the theatre stage, basically,” and keeps it healthy as one would generally maintain the well-being of a body, nothing special. And to unwind, well, she “doesn’t have to unwind, because working in many disciplines is relaxing in itself.”

Plus, as a creative artiste, she has “to look for new meanings and truths to discover, to grow and change.”