The one-line commu-nique of the then President K.R. Narayanan that the President is pleased to award the ‘Bharat Ratna’ to M.S. Subbulakshmi, was greeted by doyens of Indian music.
She was in fact the first musician to be awarded this distinction. When the President spoke to her over the phone before making the announcement, eye-witnesses said MS was rendered speechless.
However, her moment of joy was tinged with sadness as she had lost her husband Thyagaraja Sadasivam, a freedom fighter, just a couple of months ago.
Prominent personalities in the field of classical music congratulated her on being conferred the highest civilian award. Renowned vocalist Pandit Jasraj said the event was a moment of glory for classical music in the golden jubilee year of India’s independence.
Doyen of Carnatic music Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer expressed joy over the award saying, “the music world and Tamil Nadu have been honoured” by the decision.
M.S. Subbulakshmi was born on September 16, 1916. She gave her first recital at the tender age of 10, when she was asked to sing at the wedding of a friend of the family in Madurai. Her seeming effortlessness of her music was rooted in technical mastery, ceaseless practice, restraint and constant self apprisal. No other
artist had been as successful in blending the intutive and the reflective elements of art.
MS was the first woman recipient of the ‘Sangit Kalanidhi’ title and the first one to popularise Carnatic music in North India and in the West. On one celebrated occasion, Mahatma Gandhi requested her to sing his favourite bhajan for him.
MS had won many awards and accolades.
She was called ‘Nightingale of India’ and was awarded Bharat Ratna in 1998. MS breathed her last on December 11, 2004 at Chennai.
