How MS Recorded Annamacharya Kritis, Mahaperiyava Sathya Sai

Annamacharyas keerthanas are quite to popular day,thanks to MS Subbulakshmi a Noble Soul of Dedication to God, Maha Periyava of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt.

MS. as she is fondly called ,MS Subbulakshmi is a Noble soul who with her dedication to God and Maha Periyava of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt proved that by Emoting songs with total identification would take one nearer to God.

One has to feel it by listening to MS.

MS, at one point of time was undergoing a financial crisis;being a pair of high self esteem MS and her husband Sadsivam never let it be known to others their condition and MS, as usual went on donating her income to the Lord.

One day the Executive Officer of TTD (Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam received a note fro the Maha Periyava of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt and Sri Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi.

“The noble couple of M.S. Subbulakshmi (MS) and Sadasivam is in a serious financial crisis and need some urgent help. Please plan something to bring them out of this crisis immediately”. In the beginning of 1979 PVRK Prasad, the Executive Officer Of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) received two such urgent telegram messages from His Holiness the Paramacharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati and from His Holiness Bhagwan Sri Satya Sai Baba Of Puttaparthi”

What transpired later is  something to heard from the narrator.

Here it is.

“What happened to MS and why did she land in such a situation that demanded the intervention of divine personalities?” and why do the divine personalities want Prasad to help?

MS has millions of fans all over the world and they will not keep quite if they come to know that their beloved music queen is going through such a bad financial crisis. However, the noble couple will not accept any unsolicited favor and it is now for the TTD to plan something for her and see that she’s adequately compensated for that. TTD has done that earlier and something similar should be done now and that is also what the holy giants are expecting Prasad to do.

However again, it is not as simple as it sounds and there is no better person than Prasad to understand that. Prasad conducted an immediate inquiry through his official sources in the city of Madras, where the noble couple lives, and found out that “MS and Sadasivam have sold off their Kalki estate in Madras and moved into a small rented house in Valluvar Kottam, a desolate place those days in the suburbs of old Madras.Sadasivam was running a newspaper by name Kalki that unfortunately ran into huge losses forcing the couple to resort to such an extreme measure of selling their huge asset to clear off a large amount of loans”.

This unpleasant information really saddened Prasad, a great fan of MS. Wiping off his tears he stood in front of the huge portrait of Lord Venkateswara with folded hands and made a very humble submission. ”Swamy, singing your bhajans all over the world this great lady served you with utmost devotion so far in her life. Organizing everything for her in time Sadasivam was always there with her at every point.

Although she could have demanded any amount of money from the organizers of her concerts she was always happy with whatever was offered to her. Above all, she has donated most of her earnings to charity and now at this stage of her life is this what you offer her Swamy ? Don’t you think this is unfair? They are also couple of high self esteem and do not seek favors from anyone not even from God.. How do you expect them to lead a normal life hereafter? I am really feeling sad for them now and don’t know what to do. Swamy Venkateswara, it is for YOU to guide me properly and help me in doing something for her immediately.”

Without wasting any more time Prasad called for an emergency meeting of the TTD Board and sought measures from its experts to provide whatsoever relief possible to MS immediately…

A real tricky situation arose for the government run body to offer some relief to a great personality like MS who definitely deserves a better and more appropriate attention. But quite miraculously and almost immediately that appropriate attention came from none other than The Holy Lord Sri Venkateswara Himself. And this incident is a standing testimony to that.

That evening a much disturbed Prasad went to offer his last prayers of the day to Lord Sri Venkateswara, the presiding deity of the holy Tirumala temple. After offering his prayers, Prasad was walking out of the main temple and exactly at that time a very small incident occurred there…Quite miraculously; this small incident later heralded a golden era in the history of Indian classical music. As he was walking out of the main temple Prasad found a small group of poor singers sitting right in front of the temple singing bhajans in praise of the holy Lord. As though halted by an invisible hand Prasad stood there for a few minutes. He was spellbound by the amazing talent of those folk singers and more so by their rustic style of singing.

After a few more moments of silent listening Prasad smiled and smiled with a great sense of relief and smiled with an amazing feeling of satisfaction. Watching Prasad smile the holy Lord smiled and watching the holy Lord smile the whole of Tirumala smiled and watching the whole of Tirumala smile the five elements of Nature too smiled. And later those historic smiles scripted an epoch making chapter in the history of Indian classical music that not only provided immense relief to MS forever but also launched her into immortality in the world of devotional music that later earned her a well deserved highest civilian award of India, the “Bharat Ratna”.

The very next morning a much more relaxed Prasad left for Kanchi and met Kanchi Paramacharya in His holy abode. After he was granted private audience by the Paramacharya of Kanchi,Prasad explained Him in detail about his plan of action to offer assistance to MS . Prasad said “Swamy, after receiving your telegram about MS amma I was very disturbed.I called for an emergency meeting of the TTD executive board and asked for suggestions but nothing concrete came out. With a disturbed mind, the same evening I visited Lord Venkateswara and sought His guidance and blessings in helping MS amma immediately. As I was coming out of the holy sanctum sanctorum I saw a group of poor singers sitting in front of the main temple singing Annamacharya keerthanas in praise of the holy Lord. Not only was I spell bound by their devotional singing but also felt immensely light and happy as a great idea to help MS was born in my mind at that moment. I have then decided to visit your Holiness and explain in detail about my plan of action”..

Prasad said “Maastaaru,you know pretty well that TTD does quite a lot of promotional activities to promote rich Indian culture and traditional values. Now we want to actively promote many Annamacharya keerthanas that are so far unknown to the world..Our plan is to bring out a five volume LP records (Long Play microgroove record used for recording sound in analog format for gramophone records in olden days) containing some rare Annamacharya keerthanas. Each volume may have up to ten keerthanas and all in all there may be about fifty keerthanas in the whole album.”

Initially Sadasivam felt very happy with the offer but rejected it when he came to know that the keerthanas are written in Telugu language. He said “Our sincere thanks to TTD for coming up with this offer but you know pretty well that M.S likes to have command over the language she sings in. Though in Telugu, she has still recorded many Thyagaraja keerthanas earlier as she was practicing them since her childhood. However, to do the same now at this age will be very difficult for her since she never practiced Annamacharya keerthanas so far and it will be a herculean task for her to do it now..She needs at least one week time to practice one Telugu keerthana and you say there are about fifty keerthanas for which she may need almost an year…At this age of sixty three it’s not fair to trouble her with such a strenuous job…It doesn’t work Prasad and am very sorry for that.”

As the problem came back to square one, Prasad started feeling jittery and nervous. With all the helplessness in the world he gave a blank look at Lord Venkateswara in the portrait lying in front of him. And it was exactly at that moment, the Great Music Queen walked In Prasad and other TTD officials quickly got up in her honor and greeted her with folded hands. Requesting them to feel comfortable she then looked at the portrait of Lord Venkateswara that was kept on a small table in front of her.

What happened later was a scene to be seen to be believed. With extreme devotion MS immediately picked up the portrait with both her hands; closed her eyes for almost a minute; offered silent prayers to her beloved Lord Venkateswara in the portrait; later with tears running down her cheeks she gently placed her head at His holy feet saying in a low tone “Perumaal,ennai aasirvadhikka ithana dhooram neengale vandhuttela .. ??” (Tamil) (Oh my Venkateswara did you come all the way to bless me).

What a voice? What a devotion? And what a total surrender to her Lord Perumal? How did she get it and where did she get it from..??But why is that hidden pain in the great singer’s voice..??What happened? Is it due to the poor and stress filled conditions this evergreen queen of music is forced to live in for some time? Hey Bhagwan, what a painful time for this great lady?..

n the meantime Sadasivam gave a brief explanation to MS in Tamil about the Annamacharya music album proposal from TTD. She immediately said”..It’s a God sent opportunity to me and am ready to face any hardships to accomplish this task.I have got a chance to offer my services to Perumal and I will not let this opportunity go” With her firm statement MS brought smiles on everyone’s face there.

After a lot of deliberations it was decided not to burden the music queen with too much of practice and confine Annamachaya keerthanas only to first three LP records and then fill the rest of the two records with great Sanskrit literary works of other divine personalities.

Thus according to their revised plan the Annamacharya music album shall contain three LP records with rare Annamacharya keerhanas like Brahma kadigina paadamu, Naanaati batuku naatakamu,Jo Acyutananda Jojo Mukunda,Sri Mannarayana and a few more gems.

The other two LP records shall include Ganesha Pancharatnam, Madhurashtakam, Gita Govindam, Nama Ramayanam, Hanuman Chalisa, Lakshmi ashtotram, Sri Venkateswara Karavalamba Sthotram, Govindashtakam, Kanakadhara Sthavam, Durga Pancharatnam, Ranganadha Gadyam, Dwadasa Sthotram and Sivashtakam.

After all the discussions related to the music album are over, then came the most crucial phase of finalizing remuneration to the music queen which Prasad was feeling very nervous about.

Since that was the main motive behind their gathering there, Prasad mustered some courage to initiate the dialogue by saying “Amma,we are all very happy that you have agreed to take up this assignment. .May your Perumal’s blessings be with your family forever..Now with your kind permission Ammaa, I would also like to discuss about the remuneration” Prasad has not yet completed the sentence…”

http://mahaperiyavaa.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/amazing-incident-from-the-life-of-ms/

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M S Subbulakshmi::Brahma Kadigina Paadamu