[Pic : The Hindu]

TS Nagarajan‘s account of his acquaintance with MS Subbulakshmi, as a photographer is astounding. In yesterday’s Hindu, his column called as Portraits of a diva, he vividly captures the simplicity and the egoless behaviour of MS Subbulakshmi when he met her in her house for a picture sessions. Very interesting is when he talks about the MS blue.

But well before that, in this account of his encounters with MS directly and indirectly, he captures his childhood incident when he saw MS Subbulakshmi for the first time as actrees in the screen and how he remained unaffected by that.

Here is where I am able to connect to him. Similarly, during my childhood, when I used to wake up every morning with that Bhaja Govindam or Kausalya Supraja Rama Poorva Sandhya Pravarthathey singing, I hated it for the morning it brought with itself. I remained untouched by MS or by her god’s own voice. It lasted until I saw a performance of MS Subbulakshmi in Music Academy and was spell bound by the voice, the charm and her personality. It’s from then MS Subbulakshmi became a demi-god, for me. She doesn’t sing anymore in concerts and all that we can get to hear are her old collections/concerts. That only makes me hope that I was born some 25-30 years before to have enjoyed her music in concerts.

P.S : Yesterday’s Hindu Magazine is a collectible for column geeks, for it had some of the best columns including the above one. Suggested reading includes Shashi Tharoor‘s column on the global media called Weapons of mass distraction? and the Media Matters column by Sevanti Ninan.