My Recollections of Tiruvengattar – By Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam, Bharthanatyam Exponent and Scholar (Sruti April 2006)

My recollections of Tiruvengadu Subramania Pillai go back to the time when I was a little girl. He was very close to my father Director K Subrahmanyam and would visit us at our home in Chennai. He would address Subbulakshmi Amma as “Tangacchi”. He was strikingly handsome and had an aura about him. He seemed to have a “Golden Complexion” and would often be dressed in silk jibba with diamond buttons and wore a red pottu on his forehead. Although he was a fatherly figure to me he looked very inch a “hero”. He was fond of chewing “vetrilai” (betel leaf) which he kept in a lovely silver box. Having seen many film stars with make up and artificial lipsticks, I was quite fascinated as a child by the way his lips would naturally turn red (after chewing “paan”) in his radiant face. He had a gold tooth too.

Many are the musicians who have visited our home and Subramania Pillai was the one of the greats who would join us at times in my mother Meenakhi’s pooja room and play on the nadhaswaram as an offering to the Lord. I have also heard him play the Magudi which he made famous. He would play a very melodious lilting tune and then gently blend it into the siddhar paadal in punnagavarali. His magudi is still ringing in my ears. (Padma becomes nostalgic and hums the tune).

I have heard from my elders an interesting story about Tiruvengattar (as Subramania Pillai was known on those days) and his magudi. One day as he was playing the magudi in his village, a cobra appeared in front of him. The small group around him slinked away in fright but before doing so warned him not to stop playing as the cobra would then strike him. Scared out of his wits, Tiruvengattar played on, the hooded snake stood its ground. Pillai was left with no option but to slowly move backwards as he continued to play. When he thought he was out of the cobra’s striking range he is said to have run for his life even as he played the snake charmer’s tune.

My father played a vital role in the formation of the Nadhaswara Vidwans’ Association and was its Founder President for 13 years. He was like a big brother to many a nadhaswara artist and most of them including Tiruvengadu Pillai as “Anney” or “Aandaveney” (a common usage in Thanjavur district). Thiruvengattar and Veerusami Pillai were like his lieutenants helping him in musical matters. It is said that the three of them worked tirelessly to organize a special program of 100 nadhaswarams and tavils on the Madras Beach in honour of the visiting Soviet Leaders Bulganin and Khruschev. This was planned by my father with a view to matching the massive show of cultural strength displayed in Russia in honour of the visiting Indian Delegation of which he was a member. Thiruvengattar was popular both in India and abroad. He would probably have been the first to visit China as a part of a delegation led by my father, had not the trip been shelved by the Government.