Tambaram V Sundaresan

As we know that the Carnatic fraternity predominantly passes on its skills in an oral tradition, giving rise to different schools of music (styles of singing) each with its own uniqueness and specialty, and musicians at each level of the hierarchy added something on their own and passed it on. These styles are called “Baani” in Carnatic Music parlance. I myself have been fortunate to learn a few compositions in each of the styles such as the legendary Semmangudi, KV Narayanaswamy, DK Jayaraman, S. Rajam who in turn learnt from Ambi Dikshitar himself.

My initial discovery of carnatic music was a very bumpy ride. The sarigama exercises and by hearting and reproducing keerthanams (songs) never enticed me and I hated music till my late teens. Later, it was solely my teachers and the kind of music I was exposed to that turned this disinterest into passion.

This post is a part of a series called “Guru Vandanam” that I wrote as a tribute to all the teachers I have leant from.

Sundu Mama

Tambaram V Sundaresan, or Sundu mama as he was fondly referred as by his students and circle, took up music full time after he left the postal service. He was a student of DK Jayaraman and propagated the DKJ style of Carnatic music through his students.

I learnt from Sundu mama when I was in high school and early years of college. He was tolerant to the breaks I took in between due to public exams and was the first teacher from whom I had one on one training. He used to drive to each student’s house in his TVS moped, then. Even when he was in his 80s, he taught music at his home in Madambakkam.

I had discovered the greatness of Muthuswamy Dikshitar’s compositions by then and I used to request him to teach as many Dikshitar krithis as possible. He has taught me around 15 major compositions of Dikshitar, all the Nava Varnams, a couple of Navagraha kritis and Lalgudi Jayaraman’s thillanas. Kamalamba nava varnam is a bunch of 11 songs (including dhyanam and mangalam) on Kamalambikai, the goddess of Thiruvarur. Check out the below playlist sung by DKJ and his students, for more on nava varnams.

Sundu mama was an affable person with a unique sense of humour. He was well known for his standard pun jokes like “apadiya sangathi” followed by his own guffaws. The phrase literally translates to “is that so?” but the word Sangathi is also Carnatic music jargon for tune variations to a particular lyrical line.

Speaking of improvisations, he was the guru who introduced me to manodharma sangeetham (extempore singing). Though this is supposed to be creative music, he helped me to understand the basics to aalapana, neraval and swara singing. I used to have extreme inhibitions to try singing manodharma but his relentless pursuit in making me open up and begin singing creatively has helped me in the long run, I should say. He used to say this line almost in every class — “Thannila kaala vitta dhane neechal kathuka mudiyum!” (You can learn swimming only if you let your feet get wet first).

I remember Sundu mama’s teaching, everytime I sing a composition that he taught. This post is my way of making a humble tribute to the great teacher that he was, on his birth anniversary.