The belittling of Thyagaraja and the Kamal Haasan controversy
Vishnu Vasudev
A part of the Carnatic music fraternity is very upset. They have taken offense to a passing statement by Kamal Haasan during a video chat with fellow actor Vijay Sethupathi. In discussing his…
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Medium
A part of the Carnatic music fraternity is very upset. They have taken offense to a passing statement by Kamal Haasan during a video chat with fellow actor Vijay Sethupathi. In discussing his motivations for making movies, and in response to a specific question on commercial vs. art cinema, he says that he has to make a living from movies and therefore has to keep an eye on their commercial viability and box office chances. To contrast his relationship to art-making and earning a living, he says he is not like Thyagaraja, whose art came from less worldly considerations who sang praises of Lord Rama out of out of a sense of dharma, and went about singing his songs on the streets while begging for alms to sustain himself. He refers to Thyagaraja and Rama respectfully as Thyagayyar and Ramar. He refers to Thyagaraja’s songs as kalai or art. The Tamil word he used for begging is pichai.

There is a change.org petition started by a Carnatic musician calling for the condemnation of Kamal Haasan. What is the objection? Here are some excerpts from the petition:

… you have derogatorily mentioned about saint Sri Thyagaraja. We strongly condemn your reference to him ‘begging in praise of Lord Rama’.

The specific reference to Thygarajar and Lord Rama, also suggests the negatively pointed target on a specific religion/caste, which is indeed an insult to the followers of this faith: because we all know that in the past and present, there have been several saints and scholars from various religions who have earned a livelihood — cannot stoop to lows of mentioning that as ‘begging’ — in praise of Gods of the religions they belong to. Also, the Unchvrithi he did was owing to his Bhakthi, and not agendas outside of that.

…demand an apology for your malignant and despicable remarks against him…

One charge is that what Thyagaraja did cannot be characterized as begging, it was earning a livelihood while praising God. Further, this act is better characterized as Unchvrithi which stems from devotion, not the need for a livelihood. This second charge ignores the fact that Kamal Haasan started with this — in fact his whole train of thought on Thyagaraja started with this contrast — that he is not like Thyagaraja, to create art from place of religosity (the word he uses is ‘for dharma’).

Thyagaraja says so himself

Thyagaraja himself has composed a song that centred around the act of Unchvrithi (translated as “ritual begging for alms” in this article, and elsewhere as “livelihood from gleaning what is given unasked”). The song is Ennallu Tirigedi and is in the raga Malavasri. The gist of it is that Thyagaraja is tired of his existence in general, and in particular, is tired of wandering the streets performing unchvrithi. Some instructive excerpts of a translation (sourced from this website, slightly modified):

How long shall I wander? How long?

Having being reincarnated countless times, how long should I wander in this forest of worldly existence, harassing others like thieves?

Having to earn even salt and camphor by unchvrithi and filling the stomach, how long shall I wander seeking fame, boasting of being a great person?

To impress my neighbours so they invite me to be their guest, how long shall I wander telling them that I properly / patiently perform worship and chanting till evening?

So there we have it. Thyagaraja clearly links his livelihood and sustenance to singing the praises of the Lord. He is in not in denial. In fact, he is tired of, even disgusted with the act of unchvrithi, likening it to harassment, thievery and even the work of a con man.

Earning a livelihood is worse, says Dikshitar

The crux of the argument of those offended by Kamal Haasan’s comment seems to be that unchvrithi is a form of earning a livelihood,not begging for a livelihood. And is therefore an activity on an entirely different, higher, moral plane. We have Thyagaraja himself suggesting otherwise, in the song above.

We also have an intriguing anecdote from Muthuswami Dikshitar’s life (discussed in a previous post), recounted in T.L. Ventkatarama Aiyar’s biography of him that suggests that this view of the petitioners is entirely misguided.

Briefly, here’s what happened. The household was running exceedingly low on provisions and in desperation Dikshitar’s wife asked one of his students, a Devadasi named Kamalam for help. Kamalam promptly offered to pawn her bangles and other jewelry. On hearing this, Dikshitar was aghast and is reported to have said:

Kamalam, what are you doing? Your bangles can feed us for a few days. What about the future? What will be left of your jewels, if you are to maintain us all our lifetime? It is God that gives food for all of us, and if I am a real Bhakta of Sri Thyagesa, he will not desert me in my hour of need. Do not pledge your jewels, and do not give any one any occasion to say that I am making a living out of teaching Music to my sishyas.

Having put his faith in Thyagesa, he went to the temple and sang Thyagarajam Bhaja Re Re Chitta in Yadukulakambhoji, a song he happened to have composed earlier in the day. he sang in a state of vulnerable emotion. He returned to find a miracle had taken place. A high ranking official of the Tanjore king was to have visted Tiruvarur. In preparation, the local official had “collected provisions on a large scale for him”. The trip was cancelled at the last minute, and not knowing what to do with these provisions, the local official sent them to Dikshitar’s household. Thankful and relieved, Dikshitar composed Thyagarajena Samrakshitoham in the raga Salaga Bhairavi.

To Dikshitar, the miraculous appearance of unearned freebie provisions was infinitely morally superior to the prospect of making a living from an activity that would be par for the course for any Carnatic musician today — teaching music.

It may be wise therefore to pause and rethink the application of mores of today to bestow the act of earning in centuries past with any great moral force.

The belittling of Thyagaraja

Why did Kamal Haasan think of Thyagaraja in the middle of a chat? He thought of him in a very specific context. He thought of himself as an artiste motivated by commerce, stardom and money-making. His mind instinctively reached out to Thyagaraja as an example in juxtaposition — an example of one who creates art from a purer place, out of an intrinsic sense of dharma. The crassly commercial Kamal as against the vocational and deeply religious Thyagaraja. It was a juxtaposition made in humility. The first thought that came to him was “ I am unlike Thyagayya, who was driven by dharma in creating songs”. Shouldn’t this make Carnatic musicians and rasikas happy? I was certainly pleasantly surprised when I heard it. Not only was this true to our accepted conception of Thyagaraja, it was an extremely rare instance of a mainstream personality reaching out to Carnatic music to illustrate any point in any context.

If the objection is that he used the word pichai instead of unchvrithi, that is not a valid one. It was an off the cuff remark. He is hardly likely to have been familiar with the latter word nor was it likely to have come quickly to mind. The interview was in Tamil, and an easy translation, in any language for wandering the streets collecting alms (which is indisputably what Thyagaraja did) is “begging”, and in Tamil, pichai. It is unfortunate that that the petitioners view the act of begging, and beggars as “low”, “malignant” and “despicable”, to use the words of the petition. If they have such little empathy for a fellow being who is forced to beg, that says more about them than it does about the target of their petition.

So I find it extremely hard to believe that Kamal Haasan intentionally meant to insult Thyagaraja.

But for a second let’s assume this was the case, that he intentionally use the word pichai with all its unfortunate negative connotations to insult Thyagaraja. So what? Does Thyagaraja need defending? If Tom Hanks were to rant against and insult Mozart tomorrow, would a petition be required to defend the reputation of Mozart?

To my mind, the ones who belittle Thyagaraja — who make him seem puny, his legacy uncertain and his relevance limited, are precisely those so quick to take offence to an off the cuff remark by Kamal Haasan. If anyone has insulted Thyagaraja, it is them.