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COURTESY- THE HINDU
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Former Chief Minister MGR’s love for Carnatic music was no secret. He had a good rapport with musicians and he was often found humming one raga or other while travelling.
In the world of films, MGR and Sivaji Ganesan may have been considered arch rivals, but the two had a common interest in Carnatic music, each with his own list of favourites.
Invincible Chief Minister MGR’s love for Carnatic music was no secret. He had a good rapport with musicians and he was often found humming one raga or other while travelling.
“Late M.S. Subbulakshmi was performing at the World Tamil Conference in Madurai and MGR entered the hall. He stood for a moment, went out again, removed his sandals and came in again. It showed the respect he had for MS,” said T.S. Sundaranathan, son of nagawaram maestro Tiruvenkadu Subramania Pillai, who was a State government PRO then.
MGR had directed the officials to record all the concerts of the conference so that he could listen to them at leisure. It was MGR who promoted Mandolin U. Shrinivas, when he began making news as a prodigy, who could handle the western instrument with remarkable ease. “I received a call from the [then] Chief Minister and wondered whether we had made some mistake. He just wanted the telephone number and address of Shrinivas,” recalled Sampath Kumar, a former Doordarshan official.
But Shrinivas did not have a phone at that time. “The Chief Minister’s secretaries visited my house and wanted to know whether I could perform at a function. Since I had a concert on the same day, they gave me another date and the occasion — a felicitation function for actor Kamal Hassan for his role in the film ‘Ek duje ke liye’. Mr. MGR and our present Chief Minister Jayalalithaa listened to the entire concert,” said Shrinivas, while gratefully acknowledging the role played by MGR in his career. MGR even declared him a musician of the State government. Shrinivas was just eleven at that time.