What makes my nation

Some years back, I had a chance tryst with Subramania Bharati, the great Indian poet and revolutionary thinker in a little non-descript village in Switzerland. A painting of Bharati on the wall of a cabin brought me closer to my country while I was several thousands of kilometres away. How it arrived there in a tiny village with no migrant population is a mystery. It was an overwhelming moment of connect. I wrote about this intriguing experience.

I have been remembering the firebrand poet over the last few weeks. He is a favourite amongst Carnatic musicians too, his songs finding a place in the repertoire. Last evening I heard Parukkule Nalla Naadu as I stepped out. It wafted from someone's television or music system. Living in urban Mumbai, you have little privacy of sound or privacy from sound. With buildings in close vicinity to each other, you share aural spaces without a choice. So I often hear what others want to hear whether I wish it or not. Sometimes pleasant, sometimes not. Parukkule Nalla Naadu, Engal Bharata Naadu. I could identify the subtle and haunting Jonpuri melody, that only belongs to this song.

In the 80s, as a young student, I returned home one afternoon and switched on the radio. T.V. Shankaranarayanan’s concert was on air and he sang this song in his powerful and melodious voice. I remember having recorded it and listening to it several times over. He had sung it so beautifully and the lyrics grip you in their magic.

The finest in the world, our India! In wisdom, in lofty thinking, in free flowing food, in nectar-soaked poetry, in music, it is the finest country !

The poet spins verse after verse describing the innumerable strengths of this nation, whether in its natural beauties, intellectual pursuits, valour, creativity, crops and unending bounties and its multiple diversities. An amazing song which when combines with Jonpuri, makes for a peerless number. Countless are the songs of Bharati touching upon philosophy, social issues, life values. He calls loud and clear for cooperation, integration and freedom from fear, thoughtlessness and repression. His numerous songs have ‘irrigated’ the fertile soil of our music incessantly.

My chance reconnect with Parukkule Nalla Naadu made me revisit Bharati. A fire brand poet, he was also the litling romantic through his love poems. His voice stood loud and clear, even if it meant chanting from the roof top at midnight to the dismay of his harassed neighbours. Bharati through music gets me closer to a vision of the nation that serves as a bedrock of values-plurality, diversity, land without fear. Assure me freedom from fear, beseeches Tyagaraja in his endearing Kamalaapta Kula. Music takes you through many journeys — musical, philosophical, ideological. Today, in the atmosphere that prevails over the nation, music makes me think more profoundly on the wise lessons we draw from them.

Dr Vasumathi Badrinathan is an eminent Carnatic vocalist based in Mumbai. She can be contacted on vasu@vasumathi.net