Through the book Sanjay comes across as a very hard-working sincere musician who is intelligent enough to reinvent himself musically even before his audiences start to walk away
On that Note is a slim 161-page autobiography of Carnatic vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyan published by Westland Books. A compelling read, it captures the world of classical Carnatic music in Chennai from the 1980s onwards. The type of teaching that generation of musicians received has perhaps now gone forever as they were exposed to maestros who generously gave of their art.
Sanjay’s journey from a young boy crazy about cricket but gradually drawn into the world of music is fascinating, gradually evolving into him becoming one of the foremost musicians in our time. The struggles, and small successes, are dealt with in quite a lot of detail; the honesty with which Sanjay writes is laudable. As a youngster, a big moment was having the great T.N. Sheshopalan in the audience: “I wanted to make the man nod and approve of my singing. But he just sat there… that nod I sought never came.” At another point he writes, “Of course I knew my voice had rough edges… always thought of it as my weakest attribute.” For a singer that is quite an admission. On another occasion, while discussing how innovatively, and impressively, he tuned a composition in a different raga, Sanjay modestly adds “many artists before me have done this”.
A brutally honest evaluation of the drawbacks in the Chennai Sabha system is interesting, as it comes from the horse’s mouth. Sanjay asks how it can make sense to host concerts during the December season where there are only 15 or 20 listeners. And on how the renumeration to artists can be so low.
There is humour too — his descriptions of his stays with hosts in the US when on tour in his younger days is put wittily but are sobering to read. There is a certain admirable arrogance or, as he puts it, “self-esteem”; he writes about never approaching anyone for work.
For someone very particular about how his name is spelt — Sanjay devotes a page to this; strangely he misspells a fellow artist’s name; Bombay Jayashri is spelt as Jayashree.
Through the book Sanjay comes across as a very hard-working sincere musician who is intelligent enough to reinvent himself musically even before his audiences start to walk away. His openness to criticism is probably an important factor in his sheering self-analysis. “From working on film songs and projects like Coke Studio, I’m gradually expanding my horizon” he writes. After reading the book, one feels perhaps Sanjay’s best years musically are yet to come.
On that Note
By Sanjay Subrahmanyan with Krupa Ge
Westland
pp. 176; Rs 599
