By Sriram V of Sruthi

In an article in the souvenir released on the 90th Birth Annivesary of Pillai, veteran nagaswarm artist MPN Sethuraman wrote, “There are two ways of playing the nadhaswaram. One is where the main objective is to please the audience (janaranjakam) and the other is to make the performance bristle with rhythemic combinations (ayavaharam). Madurai Ponnusami Pillai, Tiruvavaduthurai Rajarathnam Pillai, Tiruvidaimaruthur Veerusami Pillai and Kuzhikarai Pichayappa Pillai belong to the first variety. The Sembanarkoil Brothers, Ramasami Pillai, Govindasami Pillai and Dakshinamurthi Pillai, Chidambaram Vaidyanatha Pillai, and Tirumeignanam TP Natarajasundaram Pillai belong to the second category. If there was one artist who established an entirely different style it was TPS. Following either of the styles mentioned first would involve twisting and turning the body. But that was not the style of TPS. He merely moved his lips and enchanted the audiences”.

That comment about Pillai is one that is repeated by many who heard him perform. Performing on the nadhaswaram generally involves the flaring of nostrils, the standing out of veins on the forehead and neck and the bulging out of the neck muscles more or less like bellows. But none of these phenomena was noticed when Pillai played. He was grace personified. Perhaps this is what contributed to the “lack of volume” in his play as pointed out by TN Rajarathnam Pillai, but he made up for this by an abundance of melody which enthralled his listerners. He also never changed his ‘seevali’ during a performance. There was none of the usual testing of seevalis that nagaswarm artists usually go through.

Not that Pillai concentrated on melody alone and neglected laya. Listeners have left behind accounts of his playing ragas such as Reetigaula for 90 minutes and then following it up with four hour ragam-tanam-pallavi suite in Keeravani. KN Shrinivasan, an ardent fan, recalls in an article in the same souvenir referred to above, how Pillai would play Kambhoji leaving out the kakali nishada and still leave no one in doubt about the raga. In any case, a list of Pillai’s acccompanists, which included such laya eperts as Nachiarkoil Ragava Pillai, Kumbakonam Tangavelu Pillai, Malaikottai (Illupur) Panjami Pillai and Needamangalam Meenakshisundaram Pillai, indicates that he must have been good in that department also. He was also apparently a good Khanjira artist,having accompanied Madurai Somu in his performances on a few occasions.

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.

Pillai, like many of his ilk, was essentially a raga man. He was loved by the rural folk for his ability to play Magudi or the snake charmer’s tune on the nadhaswaram. Based on Punnagavarali, in Pillai’s hands it reached its highest status. His own favourite apparently was Shanmugapriya. But Sankarabaranam, Kalyani, Darbar, Todi, Simhendramadhyamam and Mohanam also featured frequently in his performances. The last named raga was regarded with special affection by Pillai, for in Tiruvengadu it is believed that Aghoramoorti is particulary fond of this raga and as per tradition this is the raga performed when He is taken out in procession along the four mada streets. In an interview given to Dinamani towards the fag end of his life, Pillai revealed the strict codifications of ragas to be offered for worship at the shrines in the Tiruvengadu temple. Apart from Mohanam for Aghoramoorti, it was Vasanta for Pillaiyar, Varali for Durga, Anandabhairavi for the Navagrahas, Sama for Mahalakshmi, Begada for kali, Chenchuritti for Subrahmanya, Ahiri for Swetaranyeswara and Kalyani for Brahmavidyamba. Pillai followed this tradition faithfully till his final illness.

In the same interview, Pillai was to emphasize that Carnatick music was essentially raga music and it was unfortunate that musicians merely touched on “ragas” before embarking on “kirtis”.

Pillai also did not hesitate in experimenting with the nagawaram. He, like many other fellow artists, followed the way shown by Madurai Ponnusami Pillai by switching from the shrill and high pitched ‘timiri nayanam’ to the ‘nadu bari’ and later the low pitched ‘bari nayanam’. Here, he lowered the pitch from 2 kattai to 1 kattai and then experimented performing nadhaswaram concert with tambura sruti, violin and mridanga accompaniment. This was the first for any nadhaswaram artist and later TN Rajarathnam Pillai was to follow suit.

The nadhaswarams, to Pillai, was a sacred instrument and nadhaswaram artists were the sole custodians of this heritage. He would never touch the instruments without having a bath and according to him, the string of seevalis ought never to come below the navel of the performing artist, rather like the belief of Brahmins hold about the sacred thread. In his own way, he fought for respect to be given to nadhaswaram artists and never failed to express his bitterness at the second grade treatment they got. When in the 1950’s, the AIR, for which Pillai had performed since inception, introduced audition system as per SN Ratanjankar’s recommendations, Pillai refused to appear and stuck to his guns till the stipulation was withdrawn.

Pillai’s Nadhaswarams were made at Tiruvanaikoil and brought to him for the final boring which was done using a tool called the Brahmastram. He would test the instruments out at this stage and then select the most appropriate ones. The seevali came from Narasingampettai which was famous for it.