Ranjani-Gayatri The Ra-Ga Sisters

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Ranjani-Gayatri
The Ra-Ga Sisters
V. Ramnarayan
T
he excitement was palpable
when the violin sisters
Ranjani and Gayatri switched
to vocal music in 1997. They had
been successful violinists in the
kutcheri circuit for a decade,
though Ranjani was only 24 and
Gayatri almost exactly three years
younger. The buzz in Chennai’s
music circles after their first few
forays into vocal music was akin to
that we first experienced when a
whole bunch of young stars-to-be
emerged in the 1980s.
It was their guru P.S. Narayanaswamy who insisted that the sisters
enter the vocal kutcheri arena,
just when they were peaking as
violin accompanists and a brilliant
lead violin duo. Of the two sisters,
Ranjani readily accepted the
challenge but Gayatri was hesitant,
unsure she could handle the transition. Today, it is Gayatri who feels
that it was perhaps always meant to
be. “By temperament I would not
have been satisfied with being an
accompanist forever.” Not that any
restlessness was ever evident in their
violin days. On the contrary, they were
known to be the ideal accompanists
giving free rein to their imagination
only when it was their turn to indulge
in manodharma, even then with
due care not to commit excesses of
improvisation.
They had both trained in violin
in Mumbai, and had for years
impressed the cognoscenti as well
as lay listeners with their vidwat
and understanding of the role of
accompaniment, starting as young
prodigies in 1986. It had been their
Ranjani and Gayatri
practice from their childhood to
learn to sing all their songs,
internalising the lyrics for the more
meaningful impact their music
could provide. Their violin guru
had insisted on that, right from the
time Ranjani joined his classes as a
precocious child.
PSN was convinced that the sisters
were capable of succeeding on
the vocal kutcheri platform. He
went ahead and created a concert
opportunity for them, but the girls’
father B. Balasubramanian, travelling
at the time, did not give the green
signal. Eventually, the launch of
their singing career did happen in
1997, at Nanganallur. Word of their
confident debut spread rapidly and
soon more concerts followed. One
memorable occasion was a kutcheri
at the TTD hall on Venkatnarayana
Road, T. Nagar. The auditorium was
packed and many listeners stood
through the performance. When the
sisters received thunderous ovation
that evening, they knew their new
journey had begun. A concert at
Sastri Hall, Luz, was another notable
milestone in their fledgling vocal
concert career.
Ten years later, Ranjani and Gayatri
are among the more sought after
vocalists in the Carnatic music
sphere. Their music has a distinct
branding, appealing to young and
mature audiences alike. They are
known to offer a neat package in
their concert, balancing the various
aspects of Carnatic music in an
aesthetically
appealing
fashion.
They are a striking presence on
stage, attractively attired, of pleasing
posture, confident outlook and
clean, unfussy presentation. They
are worthy adherents of the
Semmangudi school via their guru
who was a prominent sishya of
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Srinivasa Iyer, though their music
is marked by their individual stamp.
It’s early days yet when it comes
to the question of a bani evolving,
but there is no questioning the
stylistic niche they have carved for
themselves in a rather crowded field
of high performing vocalists. They
are perhaps the youngest of the
musicians performing in the senior
slot, just behind the frontrunners.
What are the qualities which make
the sisters special to contemporary
audiences? They have appealing
voices, Ranjani’s deeper and huskier
than Gayatri’s softer, more pliable
voice, but each complementing
the other admirably, with Ranjani
usually scoring in the lower reaches
and Gayatri soaring high with great
freedom. Both are firmly anchored
in rigorously orthodox training,
their pathantara reminiscent of the
old masters, yet their expression
fresh. Their understanding of the
architecture of their art is as deep
as their feeling for emotion. When
they elaborate a raga or enunciate
composed music, they leave none of
the contours of the raga unexplored.
At times their approach can be
cerebral, even calculating, but it is
the emotional component of music
that usually predominates. Their
Violin guru T.S. Krishnaswamy sruti suddham is unimpeachable,
and so is their mastery of laya, but
their singing is rarely laboured
or kanakku-oriented or tending to
vocal gymnastics. Gamaka invariably
scores over briga, though there
have been concerts by the sisters in
which speed is a constant factor.
Flashy music, some critics call it,
even if deep felt bhava is more
the norm in the majority of their
concerts.
guru-s in T.S. Krishnaswamy and P.S.
Narayanaswamy, guru-s who have
believed in gentle encouragement
rather than wielding the stick.
In addition to their felicity with the
time-honoured compositions of the
great vaggeyakara-s including the
Trinity, the sisters have been a big
draw for their explorations of the
bhakti aspect of music through their
moving rendering of viruttam-s,
seamlessly integrating them with the
Tamil compositions which follow
them. The other popular tailpiece
they offer at almost every concert
is a sampling of Marathi abhang-s,
helped in great measure in this effort
by their upbringing in Mumbai and
authentic learning from exponents of
the genre.
There is much complementarity in
their singing abilities. Ranjani is
sober and solid, often providing
the perfect base for Gayatri to take
off into uninhibited exploration of
imagination. Over the years they have
learnt to balance a number of facets of
music, from the grand compositions
in the classical mode in the first three
quarters of a concert, to the bhakti
dominated viruttam-s, abhang-s and
bhajan-s towards the end, ensuring
the purity of each genre. Their
vocalisation and control in this
segment, not to mention their
enunciation of the Marathi lyrics
(or bhajan-s as the case may be) have
given rise to speculation whether
they may one day perform on the
Hindustani concert music platform.
Yet there is no intrusion of the
Hindustani touch into any of their
main pieces based on raga-s closely
related to their north Indian cousins.
Their kriti rendition comes in for
praise from all quarters; they take a
great deal of trouble of getting the
pronunciation and intonation of
sahitya right. They have been blessed
by the good fortune of two wonderful
About their violin guru T.S.
Krishnaswamy they say, “He lived
and breathed music. He was an
accomplished violinist but did
not pursue a concert career too
vigorously as he was unschooled in
Gayatri and Ranjani with P.S. Narayanaswamy
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AIR grade vocalist and father
Balasubramanian
passionately
music
and
intere­sted
in
trained in violin, the girls were
exposed to a constant supply
of Carnatic music, mainly
from the radio. Both displayed
precocious talent, and Ranjani first,
and Gayatri later joined the
music classes of violin vidwan
T.S. Krishnaswamy at the
Shanmukhananda
Sangeetha
Sabha. Their parents and their
violin guru were the earliest and
most important influences on the
siblings. Fortu-nately for them,
both parents and guru erred on
the side of tradition when it came
to imparting musical values to the
young wards.
the politics of music. He accompanied
eminent musicians like Mali in
concerts but those days, we learn,
vocalists were not often supportive
of the accompanists and our guru
did not favour fighting it out in
such an environment. He was a man
of few words but always encouraging.
From him you learnt not only
music, but a whole way of life.
He was incredibly patient, never
harsh, but expected high standards.
Notation had to be written with the
utmost neatness. His ‘So you didn’t
practise?’ was enough to shame us.”
P.S. Narayanaswamy has been
equally gentle and encouraging.
He attends their concerts and compli­
ments them on good performances.
“He gives you freedom to follow
your manodharma.” Like their
father, he too advocates restraint.
“Kottathey, don’t pour it all out, keep
some for the next concert!” At the
same time, he has not been rigid.
“Feel free, be yourself,” is his advice.
Other influences include their
‘manaseeka guru’ and well-wisher,
Hindustani violinist N. Rajam and
Carnatic vocalist Seetha Narayanan
from whom the sisters learn
bhajan-s. Ranjani and Gayatri are
completely bowled over by Seetha’s
total commitment to music, her
attitude of music for the sake of music.
When the sisters once wondered
aloud whether there would ever be
sufficient return from Carnatic music
as opposed to a professional career in
the corporate world, Seetha could not
understand what they were talking
about. ‘Return? What return? Isn’t
singing its own reward?’ Similarly,
they are overwhelmed by the
simplicity of their teacher of
Marathi
abhang-s,
Apasaheb
Deshpande, a disciple of Kumar
Gandharva. Manik Bhide and Viswas
Shirodkar have been their other
abhang guru-s.
To start at the beginning, Ranjani
and Gayatri were born almost exactly
three years apart, Ranjani in 1973
and Gayatri in 1976. Hailing from a
family keenly interested in Carnatic
music, with mother Meenakshi an
Making their debut as a violin
duo at 13 and ten respectively in
November 1986 at a concert under
the auspices of the Indian Music
Group at St. Xavier’s College,
Ranjani and Gayatri took the
Bombay music scene by storm. One
of the earliest reviews was carried
by the Times of India in September
1987, the critic N. Hariharan finding
the girls impressive. They also
accompanied vocalists and instru­
mentalists on the violin. Gayatri
caught everyone’s attention when
she accompanied Ravikiran in a
chitraveena concert quite early in
her career.
In December 1989, the sisters
impressed hard-to-please veteran
critic Subbudu, enough for him
to shower his praises on them.
Reviewing their concert at Rani
Seethai Hall, Chennai, he found
all round merit in alapana, kriti
rendition, kalpana swara, even pallavi
singing, stating that their Keeravani
ragam-tanam-pallavi showed perfect
training. Almost prophetically, he
expressed the conviction that the
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sisters had received vocal training,
judging from ‘the illusion they
created that the words of the kriti-s
were heard in the auditorium.’
They kept improving by leaps and
bounds. The Carnatic music scene
has in recent decades grown away
from instrumental music, and the
sisters were probably busier as
accompanists than as a violin duo
during the next decade or so, before
they became vocalists. They were
much in demand as accompanists.
They moved to Chennai in 1993,
soon after their violin guru moved
here.
A 1996 review in The Hindu marvels
at Gayatri’s talent, wondering
‘how such a young violinist could
be a sanctuary of such mature music
of depth’. She was young no doubt,
barely 20, but she had been around
for a decade, and SVK was only
echoing Subbudu’s views expressed
three years earlier. The critic’s
admiration — like that of many others
— of the sisters’ music has carried on
into their years of vocal music.
B.
Balasubramanian,
RanjaniGayatri’s father, has been an
important influence, and his wife
Meenakshi — a classical vocalist
who
learnt
from
Bombay
S. Ramachandran — was their
first teacher. Balumani, as he is
known in the family circles, learned
to play the violin, and gave it up
once his daughters started playing
the instrument, ‘as an act of social
service’ as he self-deprecatingly
jokes. Besides bringing his children
to violin guru T.S. Krishnaswamy,
a crucial move that defined the course
of their musical upbringing, he has
been their mentor, imparting values
which have shaped their musical
thinking, and tirelessly taking them
through the many rigorous steps
from early training to advanced
scholarship.
Ranjani and Gayatri with their parents and younger sister Savitri
Balumani was born in Alleppey
and Meenakshi in Madurai, but
both migrated to Bombay with
their parents. There was music in
Balumani’s parents’ home, with
some good singers, a violinist and a
mridanga player among his uncles
and granduncles and a Harikatha
exponent in his great-grandfather.
The best way to listen to classical
music regularly was through the
radio, which the family was not well
off enough to own.
Growing up in Matunga was to
live amidst a community of south
Indians, particularly Palghat Tamil
families, devoted to Carnatic music
and desperate to listen to its major
exponents. During concerts, young
Balumani would haunt the local sabha
long enough for some senior sabha
official to let him in free out of pity.
This is how he heard all the major
exponents of the day at the huge
pandal erected at Poddar College
to hold kutcheri-s. Often there was
only one radio in a building of flats,
and a whole gang congregated at the
fortunate flat to listen to the national
programme of music.
Balumani became the proud owner of
a Murphy radio in the 1960s, when
he joined IBM in Bombay. (He was
to find employment in the United
Nations when IBM was made to quit
India in the 1970s). Balu and his
small family were constantly exposed
to Carnatic music on the radio,
listening to the Tiruchi, Madras
and Hyderabad stations of All India
Radio everyday. Ranjani and Gayatri
grew up in this atmosphere, in which
no other music was allowed entry,
except some Hindustani classical
music. Among the past masters, the
Balumani family favoured M.D.
Ramanathan, K.V. Narayanaswamy
and Ramnad Krishnan to listen to.
Balasubramanian also took the girls
to listen to concerts in Matunga,
Andheri,
BARC,
Ghatkopar,
Mulund and Goregaon as the Tamil
community spread from its Matunga
beginnings to other suburbs. The
children attended close to ten
concerts every month. Music lessons
were constant and informal — not
counting the regular classes under
Krishnaswamy at the sangeeta sabha.
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Often, the father turned to face the
children as they walked to and from
train stations and bus stops to explain
some nuances of a raga or composition
— how hints of Pantuvarali could
creep into Poorvikalyani and what
the distinguishing notes of Dhanyasi
were, for instance.
The
Balasubramanians
also
entertained visiting musicians at
home, with Balumani doing errands
for the vidwans, booking train
tickets, assisting on stage — by
getting Horlicks ready for MDR
for instance, several times during a
kutcheri. He carried their violins for
them. Through all these interactions
which supplemented the knowledge
he gained by listening to concerts and
music lessons on radio and learning the
violin from Krishnaswamy, Balumani
kept expanding his knowledge base,
with the singular object of advancing
his daughters’ musical progress in
mind. According to him, while he
was passionate about their musical
growth, a concert career for them was
not the dominant aspiration.
Once their concert career unfolded, he
has guided them on what he believes to
be the right path, timing their moves,
including the one to Chennai, the
ultimate destination of every Carnatic
musician. The sisters were fortunate
in that their guru T.S. Krishnaswamy
continued to teach them till the end
of his life. Living to the ripe age of 94,
he had been able to give almost two
decades of his life to teaching Ranjani
and Gayatri. Balasubramanian agreed
to their switching to vocal music only
when he was convinced they were
ready, even after P.S. Narayanaswamy
had urged them to go ahead and take
the plunge.
The girls are known to be excellent
planners of their concerts and
Balumani has played an important
role in developing their sensibilities in
this aspect. He does like to monitor
their progress and is quite a stickler
for good acoustics at the concert
venues. This does lead to friction on
occasion. He is known to stand up for
the rights of his daughters as artists
and the proprieties to be observed by
all concerned, even foregoing concert
opportunities when he feels these have
been breached. He is convinced he is
in the right on such occasions and it
is difficult to disagree with him when
he explains the circumstances of such
differences with kutcheri organisers.
The sisters too are quite convinced
that their father is their best guide in
musical and related matters, but not
everyone looks kindly upon what is
seen as a confrontational attitude.
What do fellow musicians think of
their music? Most are appreciative of
the sisters’ sound knowledge of the
fundamentals of Carnatic music, their
authentic musical values representative
of the Semmangudi school, their
deep involvement in raga bhava and
the emotive content of their music,
and their fine sense of aesthetics and
balance. A couple of them strike a
note of caution and point out areas
for improvement. One advises the
sisters to develop a richer timbre to
their naturally gifted voices.
Another warns that confidence can
be mistaken for arrogance, especially
when the duo question some aspects
of senior musicians, even past greats,
during informal discussions. The
genuine humility they display when
talking of their guru-s and the reverence
they have for them suggest that it
is indeed their youthful confidence
that is mistaken for arrogance. Yet
another musician feels that of late
they “have gathered too much speed
in whatever they sing, when they are
capable of sedate renditions. Vocal
superficialities sometimes creep in,
something artificial and avoidable.”
The same musician also has this to
say: “Their kriti-s are well rehearsed
and sung with co-ordination, with
depth of bhava and the right vocal
nuances. They complement each
other perfectly in alapana, with
Gayatri usually taking off from the
platform Ranjani creates for her. It
is the younger sister’s forte, full of
uninhibited imagination, to which
she gives full expression. Both score
good marks for niraval. In kalpana
swara, they impress with quickfire
renditions; both are very accomplished at it, maybe thanks to their
wonderful stint as accompanying
violinists.”
Are the sisters at a crossroads in
their career? The younger Gayatri
has entered her thirties, and both
have grown and mellowed in their
music and their attitude to music
and life. They have as close to perfect
understanding as a pair of musicians
can have with each other. Their
partnership has thrived through
marriage and children, with Ranjani
the mother of two daughters and
Gayatri expecting her first child. Their
husbands have been quietly supportive
— both active professionals of the 21st
century kind, very much a part of the
modern Indian business world, but
have managed to stay in Chennai and
help their wives’ careers. The sisters are
among the top vocal duos in Carnatic
music, and each draws great strength
from her partner’s complementary
skills and support.
Where do they go from here? The
next ten years of their career could
take them to greatness, if they do
everything right and they have all
the right opportunities for growth.
It will be a huge challenge, for no
pair in the history of Carnatic music,
male or female, has quite reached the
pinnacle of fame that the great soloists
have. Ranjani and Gayatri have the
ingredients that can take them to that
next level. Can they do it? n
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