Way Down South: Carnatic Music Mixtape

Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple, Madurai, Tamil Nadu

My earliest idea of India was south India. At the time I was born in Madurai, a historic and spiritual city near the tip of the sub-continent, my family lived in a small provincial town in the northern part of Karnataka State. In my first 6 years the family moved between Gadag (Karnataka) and Madras (Chennai). Summer holidays were spent in the Palani Hills town of Kodaikanal where my older siblings attended an American boarding school.

My taste in curries ran toward sambar and rasam. Snacks were dosa and idli. Thick milky sweet coffee was more common than tea. Christmas holidays were spent on the beaches of Karwar or Mahabalipuram or Pondicherry. I learned Kannada along with English.

When I was 7 my father was transferred by his employers to North India. To the equally holy and historic city of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. Though I was too young to form any opinion about what this meant I do recall considerable anxiety within the family, especially my two older brothers who protested loudly. No one wanted to leave our familiar surroundings in the South and head more than 1500 kms north to what sounded like a completely different country. We’d have to forget Kannada and Tamil and pick up Hindi. The food was different. The mountains were steeper and more dangerous. And we would have to say good bye to all our friends.

As it turned out I loved the north. I learned Hindi (and later Urdu) and fell hard for the popular culture of Hindi films, north Indian sports like gulli danda and kabaddi and spent what seemed like years trekking around the Garhwal Himalayas. I spent my entire primary and secondary school years in Allahabad/Mussoorie and finally moved to the States to attend University in 1975.

Though North India was the part of India I became most familiar with, I never lost my South Indian roots. I always loved the food and visited friends and familiar places as often as I could. In 1977 I spent a year back in Madras with my parents who had been re-transferred back once more. Though I loved many things about the south I have absolutely no memories of south Indian music. To the extent that I had any awareness of Indian music as a lad it was Ravi Shankar and Bhimsen Joshi or Lata and Hemant Kumar.

When I started listening seriously to Indian music as an adult I found my ear was very much tuned to Hindustani (northern) music rather than Carnatic (southern). It has been a slow process to understand and appreciate the quite different sonic world of Carnatic music. And by no means do I fully ‘get’ it yet. Thankfully, I still have a few years left (hopefully) to grown my appreciation but there have been some learnings thus far.

First, I absolutely love the way south Indians play the violin. There are so many incredible violin players (some of which I’ve included in this collection) who can make the instrument sound so soulful and so at home in a variety of settings (jazz, classical, folk). Second, the south Indians are tireless explorers. They collaborate and adopt anything that comes their way. They’ve pioneered the carnaticisation not just of the violin but of the clarinet, saxophone and mandolin as well. In the diaspora south Indians like the pianist Vijay Iyer and saxman Rudresh Mahantappa are at the forefront of contemporary jazz. Third, in their classical singing there is a deep but different (from khyal) beauty. Something altogether unique and original. I don’t have the words yet to describe it.

I’ve put together this collection of several tracks I’ve enjoyed over the years. There is plenty more which may come one day in a second volume but I hope you enjoy this. It has classical flute, violin and singing. It has fusion. It has jazz/rock. It has qawwali (in Tamil). It has sublime depths. It is wonderful music.

Carnaticism